NYC Vigilante
by KrakenIsios
Summary: Robert Lightwood's final request was for his son to right the wrongs he had done as part of an organization known as The Circle. With powers gained through a secret family legacy Alec now roams the city as the vigilante known as Shadowhunter, trying to see that final wish through. AKA the Arrow inspired Malec AU somebody has probably already done but there can never be enough Malec
1. Episode 1

_Hi! This is my second Malec story and I'm bouncing with excitement to begin sharing it with you. I'm posting Chapter 1 & 2 tonight and then expect an update weekly from there. Now forward onto true love!_

*******Shadowhunter - A supposedly abandoned warehouse*******

He heard muffled voices approaching on the level below him. From where he crouched he couldn't see people yet which gave him time to slowly stand and draw the string of his bow back, aiming it at the opening into the dimly lit room he was waiting in. He had chosen his position well in advance knowing that he could reach his perch without tripping sensors or being caught on any security feed and that there were plenty of areas that the weak light didn't touch that he could hide in.

He wasn't sure if the people running their operation out of this warehouse were tied to The Circle but hopefully by the end of the night he'd have that answer along with some actionable information. If anyone from that organization was linked to this he'd be able to find some trail and then he'd have them. They couldn't always be spotless in covering their actions. If they had gotten involved with this group that would finally be a usable mistake.

This small den of criminals had been sloppy in their most recent activities, activities that spanned from drugs to guns and that was just what he was aware of. Once he had tracked them down to this location he, with some help, had been able to get ample surveillance and communication data to prep for tonight's mission.

He heard at least three people approaching but it would only take one to give him what he needed. If his intel was accurate he was looking for a pudgy man as the likely highest ranking member to be around and best source of information. He had to move quickly, grab whoever he could in the short window he knew he had before the other party scheduled to show up for the trade arrived and made things more difficult.

The pudgy man flanked by two bruisers, likely his protection as the man didn't look like fighting would be in his wheelhouse, entered through the door and he let the first arrow fly. It landed behind the three of them as the door to the main room of the warehouse closed, setting off first a loud flashbang that he was prepared for, wearing earpieces that allowed him to communicate and protect his ears from percussive forces and goggles that filtered the flash among doing other things. His prey weren't as prepared. A second arrow followed quickly filling up the area with dark gray smoke which he was also prepared for, easily breathing through the black mask that completed his facial disguise.

He jumped down into the obscured area, feeling a few different symbols across his limbs and torso warm as they made the movement effortless. He came across one thug and quickly dispatched him with multiple nonlethal stabs with an arrow. The second thug almost got a blow in but he countered and depressed a point in his neck just long enough for the man to collapse to the ground unconscious.

His target was rubbing at his eyes desperately trying to clear them while flailing around in an attempt to find the door or any route to escape. A quick boot to the back sent the man sprawling on his face with a squeal. It was easy enough to cuff and gag him.

"If you want to survive the night I suggest you make this easy for me."

"Who are you?" the man asked through the gag. At least that's what he assumed was said as it was muffled and the man was almost crying at this point.

"That's not important. What's important is that I'm going to take you out this side door," he instructed as he pulled the man up and started to march him to the exit. He could hear noises approaching, likely people who had noticed the smoke and were now alerted that something wasn't right. "Then I'm going to take you someplace safe and ask you a few questions. And if you're my friend you'll help me out and then I'll let you go."

"Friend?" the man probably replied with justified skepticism. Luckily, he had practice understanding people through gags by now.

"Yes, friend. Because if you aren't my friend then I still will get my information but you won't like my methods anywhere near as much."

The man's eyes bugged out even more and his body started to slump but he didn't stop moving, luckily for the man. He didn't make a habit of doing permanent damage to people in pursuit of his quest but he would if he had to. Not that he'd indiscriminately kill or even kill if there was another option but the man didn't have to know that. Half of his efficiency came from the sheer fear he was able to instill in others with his intimidating presence, honed skills, other abilities, and the persona he cultivated through his outfit and well placed rumors.

They had almost made it to the door when a large explosion blasted into the room throwing them both off balance and clearing the remaining smoke. Even with the help of his marks he lost hold of his target and his bow and slammed up against a stack of crates. His target took that opportunity to run back to the middle of the building where the blast came from. It would have been funny to know he was scarier than whatever had happened inside if it didn't mean he now had to choose to pursue or pull back, regroup, and risk this lead disappearing.

"What was that?" a female voice asked urgently through his earpieces.

"Not now," he growled back, trying to get his irritation under control so he could make a choice.

"I don't like this. The buyers haven't arrived yet based on the cameras I'm seeing. Something we didn't plan for is happening in there. Whatever it was took out any eye I had inside. Get out of there."

"If we don't complete this now then **they** will make sure this lead is dead by morning, literally. I can't afford to let this go."

"Fine," the voice sighed. "But I'm notifying Jace so get out of there asap."

"Fine," he echoed back. "Now be quiet so I can focus."

"Good luck, big bro." He heard the line quiet even if she was still listening in passively. He made his way through the door to follow his target further inside the warehouse.

*******Warlock - Suddenly in a warehouse*******

"Shit," he hissed as he confidently stepped out as the glowing gold portal closed behind him. Why did this always happen to him? He had been trying to discreetly track down some low level drug dealer who had been causing issues around his neighborhood. The plan was simple. Take the baseball cap the dude had dropped when he had run away scared off by some cop, use it to track his current location, portal to that location, figure out who the guy worked for, and turn him in with whatever he had on him. Then he would regroup with his friends and figure out the next step.

So, of course the street grunt would be in some rundown warehouse with a group of heavily armed guys. All those guns, previously moving towards some door with smoke coming out of it, trained on him and fired.

He just managed to open a short range portal under himself dropping him behind the bulk of the group. He then gathered energy in his hands and launched it in their general direction. He thought he had scaled it appropriately but he was a bit off his game with the whole 'surprise, your target is part of an arms cartel' bit. And the shooting. The orb exploded with such force even he staggered back as doors and windows blew out and everyone lost their footing, slamming into the ground or anything around them.

Luckily, he stayed up and prepped another orb, blue flame curling around in a vortex and aimed it at the first person with a gun who managed to stagger to their feet. A pudgy man bustled into the room through one of the doors, hands behind his back, looking terrified. He gathered a silver disc of wind and knocked the man off his feet.

He had to think quickly. Okay, so on the one hand, he had found what was probably the source of the drugs. On the other, they had a lot of guns and he wasn't great at fighting large groups. He could manage the attacking part just fine but all it took was one bullet he didn't notice. He had some mad skills but super healing was not one of them. He backed against a wall hoping it would cover his back while he made a decision. He could portal out of here but then he'd probably lose all the progress he had made. It would be so much easier to think if he wasn't simultaneously playing whack a mole with a gang of ruffians.

Another man followed the pudgy man out of the other room after a few moments and he aimed another wind disc at the new man's feet but the man stayed up, somehow dodging the main effect and regaining his balance with the elegance of a dancer. The other man, without missing a beat, launched an arrow in his direction which his just barely managed to portal behind the man. The man snapped his hand out behind his neck while tilting his head just enough, catching the shaft and re-notched the arrow, training it on him.

"Who the hell are you?"

Well, that's interesting. The archer was tall, probably taller than he was and dressed fully in black. Black pants with something strapped to his leg. A black shirt under a structured black jacket that showed off nice, broad shoulders. Black gloves gripped a black bow and a black quiver with black arrows was strapped to his back. His face was covered with black goggles that reminded him of a swimmer and a black cloth mask over his mouth that hooked behind his ears. The only thing he could see was the man's black hair that was slicked back away from his face and held back with some sort of elastic headband. Well, that and a black tattoo slashing under his chin and down his neck on one side.

He had been so distracted by actually looking at the newcomer that he had neglected the disoriented and somewhat battered armed thugs on the ground. An unfortunate oversight because one of them had regained their senses enough to get back up and aim at him. He noticed a moment too late to summon any power to preempt the shot but it didn't matter because the gunman's movements were halted by an arrow through the stomach making the thug double over back on the ground.

"I said, who are you," the archer growled at him, eyes never leaving him even when he had turned his torso to aim at the thug. A new arrow was notched in his bow and he started walking over.

"Woah now, no need for all that. You're very scary, yes. Brooding and dark, A+ aesthetic. I'm new in town. You can call me Warlock."

"Fantastic," the archer said, dripping sarcasm. "What are you doing here, 'Warlock'?"

"Well," he gestured to the gang splayed in varying states of injury, "I just moved here and I wanted to be a good neighbor, get involved in my community, volunteer and all that jazz. You know, the usual."

The archer closed the distance between them dropping his bow arm and using the tip of the arrow to poke him in the chest threateningly. He was about to say something, probably something intimidating and sexy with that deep voice and strong energy but then another group of armed men stormed in, assessed the situation, and opened fire on the only two people standing in the whole building. He could hear sirens in the distance, this was about to get really messy.

"**Shit**," he said for the second time in almost as many minutes and took the archer by surprise as he pushed him backwards through a portal and followed him through.

*******Shadowhunter - No longer in the warehouse anymore but instead some dark alley somehow*******

He was pretty proud of himself because he recovered really quickly all things considered. The strange man had done something and now they were in some cliche alley with fire escapes and a puddle reflecting the light from the street and a dumpster that people seemed to consider a suggestion at best.

"Explain. Now," he commanded using his best authoritative voice, stashing his bow on his back and releasing one of his knives in order to better threaten the man in such close quarters. It lit up with a dull gleam as the symbols recognized him which he knew added to his whole aesthetic as the man called it.

"As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted which we really should have expected given the circumstances and the company if we're being honest," the man said, pushing the knife away with one gold gloved hand as he leaned against the wall of the alley, relaxing as if ready to chat with a friend. "I'm Warlock. I'm new in town. And I was trying to do a good deed but vastly underestimated how connected my little drug dealer was. Your turn."

He was struggling to keep up his posturing. Now that they were out of danger the man didn't seem worried one bit. Which made sense if he was some cocky vigilante wannabe who hadn't been around long enough to hear the stories but really, the nonchalance with which he met being threatened at knife point was impressive.

The man wore bright blue pants, a white frilly shirt, and a tailored black jacket with a gold phoenix pattern. His entire face was uncovered but his eyes were yellow and resembled cat eyes so if those were his normal eyes no wonder he found it pointless to hide his identity. His hair was gelled in a perfect swoop with gold streaks prominent. Either an idiot or a fool to stand out so much.

"That's none of your business," he said moving away. This wasn't worth his time. He needed to get back so they could find out who this inconvenience was and figure out next steps since obviously they had lost their window with this chance.

"Hm, wait," the man called out to him. "All black, archer, you're that shadow stalker guy I've heard about, aren't you."

"Shadowhunter," he mumbled before he could stop himself, half embarrassed and half annoyed. The name wasn't that hard. Not that he wanted to be well known but seriously. **Stalker?**

"Yeah, right, that. What were you doing there tonight, Shadowhunter?"

"Again, none of your business." And this time he did leave, grabbing a fire escape and pulling himself up to the roof so he could climb a bit to get his bearings on where in the city he was before he made his way back home.

"Nice to meet you too," he heard the man call after him. Fantastic.


	2. Episode 2

*******Shadowhunter - His super secret lair*******

"Izzy," he yelled, his voice amplified by the large open space that constituted his base of operations. Walking out of the entry where the elevator dropped him off into the main room he removed his mask and goggles and blinked a few times as his hazel eyes adjusted to the bright, fluorescent lights overhead. Seeing his sister working at one of the screens he walked up to join her. "What do we know about him?"

"Hi, good to see you too, Alec. I'm doing fine."

"Hi," he said forcing himself to relax as he pulled her into a side hug. "Favorite sister, have you been able to work any of your miracles with that amazing brain of yours to turn up information on my new complication?"

"Actually, yes," she replied, tapping away on a tablet she held. "He's not at all discrete, as you probably already guessed. What he told you seems to check out." Multiple images and newspaper stories populated the screen. "Goes by Warlock. Was most recently in London. Tends to dabble in small acts of vigilantism with large amounts of flash and visibility. Not sure why he moved but this is the first recorded activity we have of him in the city so it must have been recent. He wasn't on good terms with the police over there, they have a pretty serious no vigilante policy, but with his skill set they pretty much gave up on capturing him."

"What are his known skills?"

"You pretty much saw them tonight from what I could dig up. Small area of effect attacks that seem to be tied to some innate elemental talent. A space hopping ability which I assume is how you got halfway across town instantaneously?" She paused and waited for him to nod in confirmation.

He did and supplied, "It's like he opens a hole to where he wants to go and hops through. He can take others with him. So not space manipulation but more like a portal."

"Got it," she said while tapping to add that to the notes. "And that's pretty much it. He seems to have some friends that may have their own thing going on but he's the only one that ever comes out to actually fight."

"Wonderful, this won't be annoying at all. Why are these pictures blurry?"

"What?"

"The pictures of him, you can't really see his face or any defining characteristics. It's blurry."

"Maybe it's just the quality of the pictures?"

"No, everything else looks really crisp."

"Maybe it's another power of his? Something to help mask his identity?"

"But why just in pictures?"

"What?"

"I could clearly see him when I met him, clear as day. Whoever was close enough to take these pictures and all the other people in them, nobody could help identify him?"

The siblings took a moment to think before it dawned on him.

"I bet it's my sight mark. He probably has no idea I can see through his masking ability. This is good. We'll have the upper hand. If I can figure out who he really is I can shut him down and then we can proceed without any distractions."

"Great, only one problem."

He raised his eyebrow waiting for her to continue.

"You suck at describing things."

"I do not."

"Okay, what do I look like?"

"Well, you're wearing tall shoes and a red dress."

"And my hair?"

"It's...down?"

"Color?"

"Black?"

"Anything else?"

"You're…" he gestured vaguely at her body trying to figure out the right words. "What are you getting at?"

She turned her tablet screen towards him showing him her quick doodle based on his description. It was basically a stick figure.

"Okay, but you're bad at art so that's not all on me."

"Regardless, I'm going to need you to write down everything you can and then we're going to need some bs story we can give Jace to use if we want to use the police sketch artist and even then it'll be a stretch to get anything useful with your way with words."

"Your confidence in me is staggering."

*******Warlock - A nicely appointed loft somewhere in Brooklyn*******

"I take it you were unsuccessful," a dry voice called from his sofa.

"Good evening to you too, Raphael."

"Magnus, you're back. Let me look you over," a black woman said as she walked over to him to check that he did, in fact, still have all his body parts.

"Hi, Cat. I'm fine, the only thing wounded is my pride but I do thank you for standing by just in case. Always makes me feel more confident going out there knowing I have such a helpful friend waiting for me unlike **some people who just come for my wine selection**."

"Just because you're stupid enough to risk your life for stupid things I'm supposed to sit around worrying about you all night?"

"Don't mind him, Magnus. We all know you come over every single time ready to speed out of here to help the minute Magnus would let you, Raph."

Magnus was used to this teasing exchange. Sure, Raphael could probably be helpful if he would allow the boy to be but no way was he letting his pseudo son put his life in danger for him. He'd already lost one important person that way, he wouldn't risk another.

When he had first found Raphael as a teen living on the streets trying to figure out his new powers and struggling to cope the boy had refused to engage. By the time they had finally grown close Magnus cared about the well being of the boy far too much to allow him to take stupid risks and eventually Raphael had given up since every time he tried going out into the field Magnus just portled him to someplace very inconvenient like halfway through an IKEA or on a sunset river cruise.

They had come to an agreement that Magnus would wear a tracker that his friends could use to follow him and that had an SOS button for dire situations. For just those cases Raphael would be allowed to rush in and out as a rescue only resource. That had only been used once, the day his oldest friend, Ragnor, died.

Caterina handed him a glass of wine as he removed his shoes and gloves and dusted off his jacket.

"Thank you, my dear. And thank you, my boy, for caring in spite of yourself. You can relax now, I'm back safe and sound and your wine glass looks as undisturbed as ever," he said as he dropped to sit in one of his chairs. It was nice to know some things didn't change even though so much had.

He thought he heard Raphael mumble something along the lines of, "I don't know what you're talking about," as they all three relaxed and took sips from their glasses.

"So what happened?" Cat finally asked.

"Oh, you know. Just normal complications. Accidentally porteled into the middle of an arms deal. Met that Shadowhunter guy. Almost got caught by the cops. Made a dashing escape."

"You what?"

"Calm down, Raphael. A few men with guns are no match for me."

"You met that archer vigilante?" Cat asked.

"Yes, he was, very intriguing. Tall, dark, and intimidating. I think he's more than just a trained fighter as well. If we hadn't been interrupted he may have actually made me get creative in order to escape."

"You didn't tell him anything, did you?" Raphael asked, drink completely forgotten.

"I mean, I introduced myself."

"Why?!"

"I wasn't going to be rude and he asked."

"Of course. That makes complete sense. Tell the scary murderer your whole life story because he asked. Are you an idiot?"

"I didn't tell him much. Just the basics. Name but not my real one because I'm not actually stupid, that I'm new here, that all I was trying to do was stop some drugs from getting on the streets. Nothing he couldn't get from a google search of my basic abilities."

"Fine. Sure. Do whatever you want. Since you're not dead and you don't seem worried at all that you've been here less than a month and you're already getting attention from the wrong people I'm going to call it a night."

"You're being a tad melodramatic," Magnus said as Raphael grabbed his stuff and headed towards the door.

"Clearly, goodnight Cat. Magnus, try not to make another wonderful friend before the sun comes up, okay?"

The door closed and Cat sighed. Magnus knew Raphael had very good cause to worry. Magnus was powerful but he wasn't invincible. And now he was going back out in the field without any sort of backup. He had promised them it was only for small things and that he'd never suit up without them both on call but he did have a talent for stumbling into messy situations and getting far too much attention.

But he couldn't just not do anything. The nice lady on floor three had been mugged by a kid blitzed out of his mind on some new designer drug. All Magnus had tried to do was make his little corner of the world a tiny bit safer. That didn't mean Raphael wasn't entirely justified in his concern.

"I know, Caterina, I know. I'll apologize."

"Good. I'm going to head home as well," she said draining her glass. "I have an early shift tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good. Thank you, again, for always being there for me."

"You're family, Magnus. I'll always be here for you."

After the woman had left he cleaned up their drinks and then grabbed his phone from the charger.

**Magnus (11:44 PM): **I'm sorry. I know you're right. I'll be more careful going forward.

**Raphael (11:50 PM):** Good.

**Magnus (11:52 PM): **Thank you for caring.

**Magnus (11:53 PM):** Love you 3

**Raphael (11:55 PM): **Sure

**Raphael (12:20 AM): **Love you, too.

*******Alec - Some overly bright, overly loud, and for some reason scented, hip clothing boutique*******

"No."

"But you'd look so good in it!"

"Absolutely not."

"Alec, you own literally nothing even remotely appropriate for my birthday party and this is just so fabulous."

Alec looked between the shiny, translucent shirt his sister was holding out to him and his adopted brother, Jace, who was searching for a specific size in some pants he was wanting to try on.

"Don't look at me, man."

"I'm your brother and you agreed to help me say no to her today."

"And pick sides between my siblings? I couldn't play favorites. Don't force me," Jace replied with barely any inflection as he had found his size and was now distracted with finding a fitting room.

"Come on, Alec. For me?"

"I thought you said your birthday party was going to be a small, intimate affair."

"And it is, just my closest and most important few dozen or so friends. I even rented out the entire club so I could be as selective as I wanted."

"Izzy…"

"No. Alec. You own, like, six shirts and they are all monotone and don't even fit you that well. And the last time I let you show up like that to a party you stood in the corner and glared and didn't talk to anyone because you were so uncomfortable."

"Izzy, to be fair, that's not because he wasn't dressed well. That's because he's a curmudgeon who hates fun," Jace 'helpfully' interjected.

"Thanks," Alec drawled in response.

"Alec, please? You're great. Anyone who knows you knows how amazing you are. You're the best big brother I could ever want. But everyone judges you based on what you look like when we go out and it kills me to have to fight, trying to convince everyone that you're not a socially incapable recluse but actually the most awesome person if they just gave you a chance. Just, for one night, I want to get wasted and not have to worry that people are talking bad about you."

Well, didn't that just suck. He didn't care what people thought of him, mostly. But he hated that it impacted his little sister to the extent that she felt the need to come to his aid. She was fiercely loyal with a large heart and he didn't want to be responsible for ruining her party. She had been planning her 25th since she turned 24 and if wearing a stupid shirt would help alleviate her concern then what type of brother would he be to not give her that small gesture.

"Fine. I'll go try it on."

Her pout flipped into a victorious smile really quickly which he had mostly expected but didn't mind.

"Great. Thanks, Alec. Also these pants and you have nice shoes right?"

He followed Jace to the curtained off cubicles that created changing rooms in the back of the boutique and quickly swapped clothing. At least the outfit fit so it had that going for it. And if Izzy had picked it out it was obviously stylish.

_Good enough._

He changed back and walked out of the room. Of course, Jace took longer. He had gone in with a pile of items. Alec looked around for Izzy and saw her talking to a stylish man. An Asian man. With dark hair artfully spiked and tipped with magenta. A man of familiar height and energy and holy...

Alec panicked for one moment and then pushed into Jace's changing room.

"Dude, what," Jace hissed before Alec managed to get his hand over his mouth. Alec raised his other hand, the outfit still draped over his arm, to his mouth and motioned for quiet with a finger. Jace nodded.

Quietly Alec whispered, "Izzy's talking to that new vigilante."

Jace's eyes widened and he inched the curtain open just enough to look out and see the man, then returned.

"He looks like some normal dude."

"Yeah, I know, but trust me. That's the guy. Throw on a frilly shirt and that's basically what he looked like the other night."

"Oh, right. Your masking theory. So if I can see him normally then he's not active right now, right?"

"That seems reasonable, so sure. Still, what is he doing here? It seems far too convenient."

"We need to feel him out, see what's going on. Let me take the lead, okay?"

"Sure," Alec knew his strengths and his weaknesses and he couldn't argue that Jace would be far better at covertly chatting up a vigilante not in disguise than to the point no nonsense Alec could ever pretend to be. "You first."

*******Magnus - Bane Fashion's New York City brand new store*******

Being a fashion designer was surprising conducive to vigilantism. He could come and go as he pleased and nobody batted an eye if he acted oddly. When he had moved from London he had worried for a moment that he'd have trouble moving his business but NYC had welcomed him with open arms. Magnus had had no trouble finding a storefront just off 5th Avenue and working remotely with his team that had stayed behind worked better than he had hoped. His sales had also increased as had his exposure.

The girl who he was currently talking to had fantastic taste, obviously since she was in his store. Attractive, poised, but not quite his type. She seemed like a fun time though as she screamed trust fund party girl from her perfectly styled dark hair and heavy red lipstick to her stiletto heels.

She was telling him about her birthday party while waiting for someone to try something on and had even invited him to the event promising to send him an invite to the shop. Movement caught both of their eyes from the changing rooms as two very attractive men surreptitiously tried leaving the same little room. The girl, Izzy he thinks she said, giggled and shook her head.

The shorter of the men was blonde and approached them with forced casualness. The taller was, just wow, gorgeous. Slim but athletic with dark hair and a striking resemblance to the girl. And so awkward, obviously uncomfortable at being caught. Adorable.

"Now who are you?" Magnus asked turning towards the dark haired man.

"He's Alec and I'm Jace," the blonde replied much to Magnus' annoyance. Holding out his hand, he continued, "Nice to meet you…?"

"Magnus. Magnus Bane."

"As in Bane Fashions?"

"The one and only. Well, two if you count the shop in London. And with how well this one is doing who knows when I'll stop."

"That's amazing. Did you just open this one? I don't think I've been here before."

"Yep. Just moved here. How about the three of you? Natives, I'm assuming based on your accents."

"Born and raised. Your store is amazing. I just love your style. It's quite, magical."

The dark haired man, Alec, groaned and rolled his eyes.

"Why thank you. You could say I'm just a magical person," Magnus replied and winked at Alec. "And you? I see you found something you like?"

"Yeah, sure," Alec said. "Izzy, I'm going to go on ahead and get us a table at that cafe you like." He handed her the clothing and pulled out a card from his wallet.

"Alec, no! I'm buying these for you. That way you'll feel guilty for not wearing them more often."

Alec sighed and took back his card. "Fine, thanks, Izzy. Jace, take care of things here?"

"Of course, Alec," Jace said which was all the man needed to turn with an awkward nod to Magnus before briskly walking out of the store.

"Nice to meet you too," Magnus called after him.


	3. Episode 3

_I was going to make this weekly but I'm actually a few chapters ahead so as long as I have a buffer in case I start lagging I'm going to release anything extra ahead of schedule because, why wait?_

*******Magnus - Like two seconds later in a suddenly much less interesting Bane Fashions*******

"Your boyfriend doesn't seem to enjoy shopping," he said, looking at the man named Jace. Sure the dark haired man had been incredibly attractive but fashion was kind of Magnus' thing and the man's outfit had been depressing. Obviously the outfit he had had in his hands was picked out by Izzy or by the man closing his eyes and randomly grabbing things off the racks which could actually work because Magnus was incapable of making something ugly.

"My what?!"

"Your boyfriend? Tall, dark, and horrendously dressed?"

"Alec is not my boyfriend **Izzy stop laughing!**"

Izzy was practically doubled over, clutching at her sides with silent laughter. Obviously Magnus had missed something. He had thought his assumption about the two attractive men walking out of a single dressing room with weird body language was pretty safe, but maybe not.

"Bed buddies? Sex pals? Friends with benefits?"

"None of those! Alec's my brother."

"Oh, frat bros in denial is it?"

"No, as in legally my brother. Well, adopted brother. Izzy, help me out here."

Izzy pulled herself together enough to manage speech. "He's telling the truth. We're all siblings. Jace is the favorite kid, of course, because our parents actually got to pick him but he's definitely our brother. And not gay. Alec is though," she concluded with a very useful piece of information.

"Then why were you in the same changing room?"

"Alec," Jace sighed, "got tangled in the straps on the pants."

"Oh god, seriously. That's so Alec," Izzy replied.

Which didn't seem reasonable to Magnus but she acted like it was the most normal thing for her brother to struggle with so maybe they knew best. Probably for the best if he didn't try getting involved with someone who couldn't even get his own clothing off. A disaster gay was one thing but their brother sounded like a catastrophe. More like tall, dark, and hell no.

"I've gotta get back to work," Jace said changing the subject as he looked at his smart watch. "Iz, let's get this all rung up and then can you take it back to the house for me?"

"Can't you just take the rest of the day? I was hoping to get lunch with the both of you."

"Crime doesn't sleep, Izzy."

That made Magnus stumble a bit as he moved behind the counter to assist them with their purchases.

"Are you a cop?" he prodded. Maybe he really should cut off the whole family and not just his attraction to their brother. Cops and vigilantes, well, he hadn't had good luck with that in the past.

"Detective actually." Yeah, this was really not a good family for him to tangle with.

"And you?"

"I dabble in a few things, mostly still studying though," Izzy vaguely supplied. At least one of the siblings was safe.

After they left Magnus left the front of the shop to his employee and went up to his design studio and locked the door to relax a bit. It had been a good sale to an odd trio. Izzy had bought an armful of items with a promise to return when she had more time to browse. He liked her well enough. She'd also bought a simple fitted navy mesh top and black jeans with leather straps wrapped around the legs for Alec. Jace had bought the two outfits Magnus had styled on mannequins.

But yeah, if Izzy actually followed through with that invite he'd politely decline.

*******Alec - A cafe that had nobody he needed to talk to in it*******

Alec tried passing the time waiting by scrolling through his phone. If by scrolling he really meant googling Magnus Bane and finding out everything he could about the man. Again, it all seemed accurate to what he had mentioned. Founder and visionary behind Bane Fashions. Started in London. Recently moved to NYC. Just opened a second location. Successful financially. Had no real social media presence but his brand had a few million Instagram followers who seems very engaged.

"Alec, what are you doing?" Izzy hissed as she looked over his shoulder and stole his phone before sitting down across from him.

"I was just curious."

"What all did you search? You didn't search both his identities together did you?"

"Of course, not. I'm not you but I'm not that stupid."

"Incognito mode doesn't work, Alec."

"I didn't. I swear."

Izzy was scrolling through his history and cleaned it out before handing the phone back to him.

"Fine, but I'm doing a full scan when we get back. Just to be sure. Normally I'd trust you but after that incredible failure I just witnessed I don't trust you with anything tied to him."

"Wait, you know? Did Jace tell you?"

"Come on, Alec. Jace maybe would have been fine if you hadn't been so entirely incapable of hiding your reactions when Magnus tried engaging you. Seriously, it's like you don't do this every day or something. Did you really think you managed to hide that something was off? From me? I know you're not smooth but you were freaking out so much your energy was even throwing Jace out of balance."

They both paused as the waiter took their order.

"Well, my bad for freaking out when the...new friend we've been trying to identify just pops up as the guy who made the clothing against your skin."

"Oh my god." He didn't know what he had just said caused that reaction but his sister looked entirely too happy for the conversation they were just having. "You weren't weird because of him being...our new friend. You're acting weird because you think he's hot!"

"What? No. And keep your voice down. We don't need the entire cafe to hear about your theories about my love life, thank you very much."

"Yes. Yes you do. I didn't see it the first time because I was so distracted with the mystery of it all but you couldn't even look at him today. This is great! We can feel him out and then bring him into the fold and you can finally have someone watching your back and you can be a crime fighting couple. It's meant to be."

"I couldn't look at him because his eyes are super distracting!"

"So eyes are your thing?"

"Oh, right. You probably can't see them. Great. No, Izzy. I'm not worried about losing myself in his eyes. His eyes are freaking yellow cat eyes. You try looking into those. It's insanely intense. They're almost hypnotic."

"So he's disguising them even in his normal life? I mean, that makes sense. They would be a bit hard to explain. But don't you see? He gets under your skin and throws you off. You can **see** him, the real him. It's like the plot of a romance movie! You even have a dramatic meet cute. I ship it."

"Izzy, focus. We have no idea why he moved here but he's sloppy and cost us our best lead. Even if I did think he was beautiful it wouldn't matter because I don't have the time for the distraction."

"You think he's beautiful?" she almost squealed.

Izzy was far too excited about something that should be freaking them out. So he didn't really date, like ever. Izzy knew why. He had a sacred duty that was actually kind of a big, dangerous deal and he wasn't knocking it out of the park recently.

"Izzy. We need to find out as much as we can about him and why he's here and what he's mixed up in and we need to keep him as far away from us as possible."

"Ugg, fine. There'll be plenty of single guys for me to set you up with at my birthday party so I'll let this go."

"No, you'll let it go because you know I'm right and also no, you're not spending your entire night playing matchmaker when you should be enjoying yourself. I'll be fine by myself. I'll mingle and drink at least three drinks and I won't leave before midnight. Look, you even got me battle armor. You've done your part."

"Okay. But when you're ready I have a little rainbow book curated just for you."

*******Magnus - A closed party against his better judgement and maybe without Raphael knowing*******

Okay, so when the invitation from Isabelle Lightwood had actually arrived he had had every intention of sending her a nice message thanking her but regretfully declining the invite. He'd send her a cute bodysuit he hadn't put on the floor yet. Then they'd be done and he'd make sure to be professional but distant if he ever ran into her again in the store.

That had been the plan and when Raphael had found out about it he had insisted it was the **only **plan. Because Raphael had done one minute of social media stalking before he had found out about the police detective brother and reminded Magnus of just how bad of an idea that was.

It had been the plan when Magnus had gotten home from his studio on Friday and taken a nap. Then, Magnus had dreamed of hazel eyes and what it could be like to see the male Lightwood give in and turn his pent up whatever he had going on inside into what ended up being a very enjoyable dream for Magnus. And suddenly the plan was tweaked a bit until it became, let's just check it out, make an appearance. It can't hurt to have a good time every now and then and make some social connections. He was new to the city. And Isabel had to have tons of friends. What even were the odds he'd run into any of the siblings for any real amount of time anyway?

So he had thrown on a very appropriate and not at all peacocking outfit complete with deep, deep v-neck, multiple rings, an ear cuff, two necklaces, and the tightest pants he could actually move in. He topped off the outfit with pink, lavender, and blue glitter stripes in his hair, dramatic eyes, and his favorite rainbow highlighter. You know, just in case it was too loud to hear his overt flirting, so people wouldn't mistake his preferences.

It was eleven by the time he arrived at the at the club and after making it through the guest list check he walked into a smaller party than he had expected. Pandemonium was a larger venue but it had been sectioned off so that the dance floor was more intimate and food could be laid out. There was a fully stocked photo area with a plethora of props and professional photographer and a makeshift room just for relaxing, or sobering up a bit, if people just need a moment to themselves. The upper level was set up with a second checkpoint, for Izzy's personal use and anyone she wanted to hang with in a more selective group. Everyone looked like they were having a fantastic time.

The bar was staffed so well that he didn't have to wait at all before he had a martini in hand. It was made with top shelf liquor as well, he hadn't even had to ask. Izzy had promised an open bar but she was obviously very well off indeed if she could do all this so casually.

"Sir," a voice behind him inquired. He turned to see a man around his age. "Are you Magnus Bane?"

"That depends who's asking?" he said sipping his drink and making eyes at the not, not attractive man.

"Miss Lightwood would like to extend to you an offer to join her upstairs for drinks, sir."

"Oh would she now. Well, can't deny the birthday girl, can we?" Magnus gulped the rest of his drink and then followed the man whose name he had never gotten to the stairs.

After a brief exchange he was led up to an arrangement of high back couches where a few small groups were gathered.

"Magnus!" Izzy exclaimed as she pulled him into a tight hug. "Come toast to me! Thanks, Raj, for finding him."

"Of course, Miss Lightwood. I'll just be over here if you need anything else."

She was definitely already drunk so her ability to balance and stride with authority on shoes that had to have at least six inch heels impressed him. Magnus let himself be pulled over to a group that included a man with longer hair whose lap she sat in before patting the couch next to her indicating that Magnus should join her. She poured everyone around a shot and clinked her glass against his before they both downed them. Normally he wasn't a shot person but expensive vodka was no chore in any form.

"Sorry, where are my manors? Meliorn, this is the designer I was telling you about, Magnus Bane. Magnus, this is Meliorn."

"Pleasure," Meliorn said, acknowledging Magnus by inclining his head since his hands were a bit busy holding Izzy as she leaned over to arrange more shots and talk to people, currently him.

"Likewise."

After two more shots Magnus was feeling the alcohol hit him so he excused himself to go find some water. Izzy was truly a fantastic party planner, or had hired one more like, because she had water stations set up in discrete alcoves and corners so that guests wouldn't have to travel to the bar or wait for a waiter. He found the closest one tucked behind the furthest couch on the upper level and made his way to it.

In front of it was standing the birthday girl's single and gay brother in **his** clothing. The navy mesh was dark enough that it wasn't fully seethrough but it was tight against his sculpted torso. And the short sleeves confirmed that the man obviously worked out. Magnus had heard gym bros refer to their bodies as temples before and now he knew he'd be willing to worship at this one. Plus, the pants. The pants with the straps wrapped around his long legs making the close fit of the item form fitting in places. He even had light makeup on, probably by his sister's hand. Eye liner making his light irises pop and his mouth look…

_Yeah, water is exactly what I need right now._

*******Alec - In his own, personal hell*******

He shouldn't have let himself be talked into starting out with all of those shots but what his sister had said had nagged at him. It's not like he liked being miserable at parties and he could change, in theory. So he had started out by trying to mimic Jace and maybe it had worked a bit too well because multiple people had wanted to do shots with him in some weird bonding ritual. Plus, he wasn't really fond of the taste of alcohol so shots were, in some way, an efficient way of fulfilling his promised three drink quota.

Three shots has turned into many shots plus this cocktail he just had to try and somehow between the hours of ten and midnight he had gotten far too drunk. Not a hard feat since he had never made a point of cultivating much of a tolerance. If he could do what he wanted to do he would leave, find his way to a private location, and activate his clarity mark to sober up. But if he did that his sister would spend the rest of the night worrying that he hadn't enjoyed himself. So instead he was downing a glass of water and refilling it, cursing the fact that he couldn't just activate the mark without revealing it to anyone around.

"What are you, a fish?"

_Oh. No. Frick. No fish. No fu..._

"Hello again, Alexander."

It was Magnus eyes that stare into your soul Bane in the very sexy flesh. He wasn't sober enough for this.

"I'm not a fish. You're a fish."

_What did that even mean?!_

Smooth, he was even worse around the man drunk.

"Alexander, are you drunk?"

"Yes."

"Interesting. Do you want to sit and tell me why I'm the fish when you're guzzling water?"

"Sure." Alec found himself sitting next to the new vigilante who **he couldn't let know that he knew** on a secluded couch.

"So. A fish?" The man was teasing him.

"Yeah. Did you ever read that book as a kid about the fish with all the shiny scales? And the fish gave all the scales away to anyone who asked until it only had one left or something."

"I think I remember that book. Sure."

"Well, you're shiny like that fish." Alec's body betrayed him along with his mouth as his hand came up and he found himself caressing a shimmery, pastel, rainbow streak on Magnus' cheek.

"Are you trying to steal a scale from my face, Alexander?"

"No, no, you shouldn't be like that fish. Keep your scales, Magnus. I like them on you way more than I'd like them on me."

He liked the feel of Magnus' skin under his thumb. And he really liked his eyes. People were never honest in this world. He really wasn't. Jace and Izzy weren't even if it was always for the best of intentions and half the time because of him. Even his little brother, Max, had started hiding things from him as he hit puberty. But those eyes were pure truth. Even if Magnus didn't know Alec knew. Alec saw them even when he wasn't supposed to and it felt like a warm, shared secret had nestled in his chest.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Your eyes."

"Do they remind you of a fish too?"

"No, I love them. They're beautiful."

And while Magnus was momentarily frozen, mouth partially agape, he leaned in to kiss him.


	4. Episode 4

_I'm procrastinating on the chapter for my other story I'm supposed to post tonight soooooo you get another episode!_

*******Alec - In front of a punching bag that did absolutely nothing to deserve this kind of treatment*******

"Well, good morning, Big Bro. Any particular reason you're putting in such a hard workout?" Izzy teased as she entered the lair.

"It's afternoon, Iz."

"Well forgive me. Not all of us have magical markings that cure hangovers."

"Fair."

"And don't deflect. Nothing happened last night, right? You seemed more out of it than usual."

"Don't worry, I remember everything that happened. And it's fine."

"Good. Alec," she said and paused for him to stop and turn to her. "You know, I didn't want you to feel pressured to be someone you're not. I'm sorry if I pushed too hard."

"No, it's fine. I know where your heart is. It's my fault. Honestly, I should be working on my tolerance. There may be situations in the future where I can't use a mark to get myself out of a situation."

"Leave it to you to turn getting wasted into a training opportunity."

"You know it."

"So how good was Magnus at kissing? And you can't claim you don't know what I'm talking about because you just said you remember everything."

"I'm not answering that." He went back to the punching bag..

"Based on what I broke up, I'd say it was the best kiss of Alec's life," came Jace's voice from the hall. Alec groaned as his brother popped into the room. "Seriously man, there's kissing and then there's eating someone and you definitely looked starved."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize kissing should be on my training plan. Remind me to correct that...never."

"Come on," Izzy said in a teasing tone. "Practice is like your job. You can do stuff outside of your job. And kissing is fun."

Alec felt his face tense before he could force it to relax.

_Dammit._

"Alec," Izzy continued, less teasing this time. "You've kissed people before, right?"

Alec kept punching the bag. He didn't need this right now.

"Oh my god, I can't believe this. How did I not know this vital fact about your life?"

"Izzy, enough."

"Don't worry, Alec. I think Magnus would be up for round two of kissing practice," Jace chimed in.

"I hate you both. I'm going to wash up. When I get back I want us to be talking about something useful, okay."

"Sure, sure," Izzy said dismissively and waited for him to head into the shower before leaning over to Jace. "Tell me everything."

*******Jace - A flashback to him having to be the responsible one at a party one for some reason*******

_Well, that's new._

Jace wasn't sure what to expect when he went to check up on his brother but it certainly wasn't this. Alec had been drinking heavily so Jace was just going to give him a chance to find a safe space to quickly sober up. But now he wasn't sure. It was quite the conundrum.

On one hand, Alec really needed this. If Jace had to guess this was possibly Alec's first time letting go with his sexuality. He was very happy for him. And he looked like what he lacked in practice he was making up in enthusiasm. It wasn't really Jace's favorite method of making out, publicly and heavily, but Magnus surely didn't mind with how he was responding.

Which was the other hand. Because drunk Alec was making out with Magnus. As in, the vigilante Warlock, Magnus. Jace had almost no experience with drunk Alec. He hadn't pegged drunk Alec as being so open to PDA so he had no idea if drunk Alec also had a penchant for oversharing very secret information.

Normally, he wouldn't worry. Alec wouldn't talk about it, drunk or not, without a trigger even if he was wasted. But normally he wouldn't also be making out with a trigger. So maybe Alec was keeping his lips sealed, no pun intended, but also maybe Alec had already slipped everything about knowing that Magnus was Warlock and everything.

He really hated this. He didn't want to cock-block his pretty repressed brother but this was literally one of the only people Alec really couldn't be doing this with. Jace was pretty sure sober Alec would agree with him. Probably.

"Hey, buddy," Jace awkwardly said, tapping Alec on the shoulder trying not to look at the man he was leaning over. "Alec," he said more curtly.

Alec straightened up, slightly detaching from his partner, and tried to focus on his brother. Oh man, he was really far gone. Magnus glared at him before shuttering his expression.

"Heeeey, Jace. What's up?"

"Alec, I need your help with the, um, surprise we have for Izzy. Remember? It's out back?"

"Wha?"

"Yep, must have forgotten. Let me help you up. Let's get you some air as well."

"Bu," he gestured at Magnus who was trying to fix his clothing and hair.

"You don't want to disappoint Izzy, right?" Jace hated to play that card but he knew it'd work. And it did.

"Oh, right. Okay, sorry Mags. Thanks for...the talk," Alec said as a blush started forming, dripping from his cheeks down his throat into the material of the shirt that couldn't quite be seen through.

"I should go," Magnus said and quickly left the very awkward encounter, stopping to make a quick farewell to Izzy before exiting the club.

"Okay, buddy. Let's find a place to get that mark activated. Alright?"

Jace led him into an alley he knew didn't have any security cameras, pulled out his stele, and swiped over the appropriate mark to help Alec sober up. He then texted Izzy he was taking Alec home and put him to bed. At least he wouldn't wake up with a hangover.

*******Shadowhunter - Perched precariously on the limb of a tree overlooking a dark park*******

"So, I added another setting to your goggles, by the way."

"You didn't think to prep me on that **before **I left?" he whispered, very aware of the quiet of the park around him.

"Shh, you're the one who said you wanted to be set up way in advance in case they sent a team ahead to set up a perimeter."

"Fine."

"Stop answering. They may hear you."

Alec actively forced himself to relax his jaw. He didn't want to go triggering a migraine even if he could heal through it easily enough.

"I've been tracking Warlock in my spare time and I've been able to isolate his portal signature. Now I know what you're thinking, how does that help me? Well, if it picks up recent activity it'll pop up in the top right corner with a directional arrow and estimated distance. And yes, you can turn it off. But I figured it'd come in handy so he doesn't just stumble onto your fight again."

Alec remained silent. That was, probably helpful. He had managed to avoid Warlock for a few weeks now. Sure, seeing him meant that there'd be complications to his plans but also he wasn't sure how he'd react after that night at Izzy's party.

"I know, I'm the best. You're welcome!"

He grunted an affirmation. She was really something and he was lucky as hell to have her at his back.

Instead of thinking about his first kiss and how amazingly wonderful Magnus' body had felt under his hands he had thrown himself into tracking down a new lead to The Circle. Weeks of work culminated in him finding what he hoped was a meeting between one of Valentine's most trusted men and another party. It had to be special if Hodge was coming out. He was serious business, definitely a challenge to take out even if he had no enhanced abilities.

It wasn't much longer before their intel proved accurate. A fit, blonde man with a circle tattoo on his neck emerged as a handful of heavily armored men fanned out around the area. A few minutes later another figure with hat pulled low and long trench coat approached with their own guards flanking them. Based on body type he was guessing a woman. Hodge plus eight plus the trench coat plus ten more. Twenty in total. That was, a lot, even for him.

"Don't even think about it. There's way too many of them. And don't give me that look I know you're giving me. I can see what you see, remember. And that's way too many people."

He tapped on the mic woven into his mask four times.

"Like hell do you think you're launching four arrows at once. Are you insane?!"

He probably was but that didn't stop him from notching and releasing four arrows, hitting four targets and taking them down. His cover blown he quickly pulled out more arrows and dropped, multiple bullets barely missing him.

"On your left."

"No helping while I need to think."

"Fine."

After emptying his quiver Alec managed to get ten of the guards down and was going after Hodge. Two bullets grazed him but his marks were doing their work and he mostly managed to evade and dodge. The other party escaped with their people leaving just Hodge and three grunts left. He could do this. He could.

And then a little dot flashed in the upper right of his goggles and a flashy circle blared into vision completely messing with his night vision causing him to stumble and a bullet lodged in his shoulder.

"Who has the audacity to fight in a playground. Children come here!"

*******Warlock - Righteously stepping out of a portal to protect the sanctity of a child's playground*******

_Honestly, who has the gall to have a shootout in a park._

It just so happened this particular park was down the road from his place, he could even hear the exchange of fire from his balcony. Of course he had to come put a stop to it.

"Get down, you idiot," yelled a very angry Shadowhunter as he dove and bodied Magnus to the ground.

So, apparently he had portled into another mess, again.

"Nice to see you too, darling, but would you mind telling me what's going on?"

Shadowhunter didn't reply. He was too busy switching to a sword as he slung his bow back on an empty quiver. Whelp, at least he knew what side he needed to be on.

Magnus quickly lobbed some flame orbs at the other party, throwing them back with the explosions.

"Stay back and cover me," Shadowhunter commanded and wow did that tone do something for him. But he couldn't focus on that right now, he needed to be helpful.

"Got it."

Shadowhunter quickly knocked out the three grunts still on the ground with the hilt of his blade and then made his way over to the blonde man and started to cuff him.

"You have no idea what you're getting into," the blonde man spat. "Valentine won't let this go."

"I'm counting on it," Shadowhunter replied. He stalked up to Magnus dragging the man behind him. "Is there anyway you can send me, somewhere?"

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

They both heard police sirens in the distance.

"Shit, Eye? Did we call them?"

Magnus saw the man wait for a response, probably had someone in his ear. He'd think the code name for a surveillance type being 'eye" was a bit too cliche for someone as no nonsense as Shadowhunter but he really didn't have much room to judge.

"Shit, okay," he said, turning back to Magnus. "I'll tell you what I can if you get us all away from here. But we need to do that first because we didn't call this in so I have no idea who is going to be first on the scene and this'll get way messier if we're still here."

"Fair enough." Magnus turned to open a portal and then he heard a loud rapid retort from behind and was thrown to the ground by the other vigilante, again. "What was that about?"

_Oh no._

A figure too far away to make out was holding a very nasty looking probably machine gun and Shadowhunter had just taken a chest full of bullets right where Magnus had been standing. The cuffed blonde was running away towards the figure, using the barrage as cover. The other vigilante was falling in what very much felt like slow motion to Magnus in front of him.

Without thinking, he dove, covered the man with his body and dropped them through a portal on the ground into his living room.

*******Shadowhunter - In a lot of pain*******

"What did you do!" a woman's voice, unfamiliar. Not Izzy. **Not** good.

"Cat, it's my fault. He got shot, a lot. And, oh my god, Cat is he going to die?!"

"How is he not already dead? Quick, get him on the bed. I have to get those bullets out of him right now if I'm going to have a chance of saving him," a steady female voice said, hovering near his head.

Alec tried to talk and ended up spitting up a gob of blood. Hands went for his mask. "Not. Mask."

"It's alright, we won't take it off. Just trust us, okay? We're just letting you spit out the blood," a pair of bright eyes said anchoring him a bit.

He'd have to be okay with the half cover the mask still gave him where it was above his bottom lip.

"What the hell?!" came a third voice. "What if people are tracking him?"

"Then they can come and get his body if you all don't get out of my way to let me treat him," came the woman's voice again.

Alec tried to reach for his stele but his arm didn't want to move.

"This is going to hurt," was the last thing he remembered hearing as he was laid on a soft surface.

*******Shadowhunter - In some pain so probably not dead because hopefully being dead didn't keep hurting*******

Alec sat up abruptly, not quite sure where he was or what happened. Everywhere hurt and protested at the movement.

"Easy, easy," came a voice from next to him. Magnus, currently Warlock sat next to the bed he was in. "So it seems you have super healing of some sort because if you hadn't gotten me out of the way and I'd have taken that I'd be 100% dead."

He looked down at his body. He was heavily bandaged. He raised his hand to his face and felt his mask and goggles still on even if the goggles were showing him nothing. He slipped the mask fully into place.

"Don't worry, we respected your secret identity. Nobody looked under, I promise."

"Thanks," he managed to get out.

Magnus brought him a glass of water which he drank, barely lifting the mask to make room.

"My stele?" He had been stripped of his weapons and most of his gear.

All he got was a questioning look. It hurt to even breath to get the air to talk so he gestured with his hands to indicate the length of the item.

"This?" Magnus replied holding up the instrument. It, along with his jacket full of holes and his weapons were laid out on a chest of drawers across from the bed. "Oooooh, what's it do? Is that like your transformation pen? Do you say something like 'Sailor Shadowhunter, Make Up!'? Is there a light show. I did always like their flair for the dramatic."

"Yeah, and no, not anything like that," Alec tried not to cough as he held out his hand for it and began to peel away the dressing that was blocking his healing mark.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You may heal faster than most but you're still really banged up. We almost couldn't save you even with your ability."

"It's alright, Magnus," he replied as he continued until he had exposed the mark enough to slowly trace over it. He grunted with the pain of all the bullet holes closing and stitches falling out and let himself fall back on the pillows for support. He could trace the mark blind anyway, he could for all of them by now.

Magnus just sat there gawking at the mark as it glowed with a white gold light. Alec focused on the man's face. It was a nice distraction from the pain. So he saw the moment he caught Alec's slip.

"What did you call me?" Cat eyes jumped to his.

Alec hesitated in answering before saying, "Someone must have called you that last night."

"No they absolutely did not. They aren't that sloppy. How do you know my name."

"Okay, look," Alec said as he started removing bandages, checking that everything was really healing fine. Things already felt better and the pressure in his chest was relaxing. None of his muscles were refusing to move. "So you do some masking thing with your powers, to hide your face and stuff, right?"

Magnus just nodded a shocked affirmation.

"So, this mark?" Alec pointed to one on his forearm. "I'm pretty sure it lets me see through that. At least in person. I've been able to see you since the first time we met. I didn't even realize you had a disguise until we pulled up some news stories on you and I saw you all fuzzy there."

"Fuuuu…"

Alec cut him off before he could spiral or worse. "Look, I haven't done anything with that info so far. I swear, I have no reason to do anything with it. You and those people who helped you help me last night, you're safe. We would never betray you."

"Unless I gave you a reason to, right?"

Not that everything up to this point had gone well but Alec managed to find some room to deflate a bit. So Magnus was mad. That made sense. Even Alec could read that tone and it was defensive and withdrawing.

"Nothing in your background indicates you'd ever do that."

"So you're asking me to trust you with my life and the life of the people who are important to me but I'm sure you're not offering to take off your mask to level the playing field, right?" The man had moved to the door of the room, defensively. Probably thinking about his associates and letting his mind drift to worst case if he was reacting anyway like Alec would in the situation.

"I, I can't." Alec really wished he could. If it was just himself he would. But this was more than him. It was Izzy and Jace who were actively involved. It was his mother who was trying to keep the family together after his dad's death. It was Max who he wanted to let grow up and live a normal life. "Magnus, please. I know you didn't have a choice here but if you had the choice to tell me and risk your friends and family, would you?"

"I guess not."

"I want to trust you, I do. But…"

"I get it," Magnus said, curtly waving his hand. "I don't like it but I'm not going to take that choice from you. Since it seems like you're fine now, somehow, I'd like you to leave. I'll send you wherever you want."

"Okay," Alec gave him the location of an abandoned factory he knew he could get back to his lair from without being seen in daylight.

As Magnus readied the portal he found a pen and paper on a desk in the room he had been in. Before stepping through he handed the paper to Magnus.

"I can't give you what you want but I can give you this. It's my direct line. If you ever run into trouble, if anyone you care about ever runs into trouble, I'm here for you."

"Whatever," Magnus replied as he dropped the paper on the nearest surface and turned away as the portal closed.

_Whelp, that was probably easier than whatever Izzy has planned for me_.

The radio silence and lack of a rescue meant something had gone wrong and she had completely lost him last night. He made the slow trek back to the lair, weaving in and out of shadows the whole way.


	5. Episode 5

*******Alec - His lair currently housing two very worried siblings*******

"Okay, before you say anything, I have an explanation." He knew he didn't look terrible but his shirt hadn't been salvageable and his jacket was riddled with holes. Jace was pacing, looking at his phone as if he hoped his brother would magically pop out of it and Izzy was frustratedly banging on some part of the mass of wires and screens she called a workstation.

"I should hope so! You went off the grid for almost half a day. I couldn't find you. I lost Magnus. The last thing I heard was a lot of gunfire and then zilch. I've been scanning facial recognition databases for either of you all morning!"

"What? What happened to the tracking?"

"Izzy has a theory," Jace replied. He walked over to Alec to pull him into a long hug. Izzy joined him.

Normally Alec wasn't one for hugging but he knew his siblings needed this so he hugged them back until the were confident he was here and mostly unscathed.

"You first," Izzy said, holding back tears. She looked exhausted. Both of them did.

"So you probably noticed, Magnus portaled into the middle of the fight and he did help me take down Hodge. We were about to portal away but I was too lax and didn't notice that the other party had come back with some heavy artillery. I got him out of the way in time but I took a few bullets, enough that I was pretty out of it."

As he talked she came over to him with a contraption he knew scanned for trackers and bugs.

"What?!" Her hand stilled in her sweep of his person.

"Izzy, let him finish. He obviously isn't bleeding out on the floor."

"Yeah, I won't lie. It was bad. We lost Hodge but Magnus got me back to his place and someone on his team has to be some sort of medical person."

"Probably Catarina Loss," Izzy interrupted again.

She finally sat down, confident nobody had tagged him before releasing him back into the wild. He really didn't like how paranoid both of his siblings had become because of him but he wouldn't have even thought to do that. They really were the best.

"Who?"

"I think I have his inner circle pinned down. She was in London and then moved to New York when Magnus did. She's a nurse but seems to have done some stints with Doctors Without Borders and probably picked up some emergency medical skills that would be useful."

"Sure, so she stitched and bandaged me up and when I woke up I was able to finish the rest with my stele."

"So...they know?" Jace asked.

"No, they, um, kept my mask on. But he knows I know who he is and he's, really not happy about it. He understands why I need to protect mine but he's probably not going to be best buds with us."

"Noble of him," Jace said in a way that relayed that he absolutely did not believe either the assurance or the motivation. "Any ulterior motive you can think of?"

"No, I think he's telling the truth. I think we can trust him but I'd never make that choice for you guys or for mom and Max. Don't worry."

"Alec," Izzy said, voice hesitant. "It's not often we run across someone else who's, well, you know, like you who isn't also either against us, completely out of it, or immediately dead. If one day you wanted to bring in someone, especially someone who understands what it's like to have abilities and have to hide and fight with yourself about priorities, we'd understand."

"Yeah, man. We trust your judgement. If you decide you want to trust Magnus then we wouldn't begrudge you that connection. And, it would be nice knowing you had a partner in the field."

"Absolutely not. Look, guys. We are vastly different and every time we've fought so far we've hindered each other more than anything."

"Okay, but if things change, just let us know. I'd love to get to play around with his powers. I already have some ideas," Izzy said trying to lighten the mood.

"I do have to admit, I gave him the emergency number. I owed him that."

"Good," Jace said nodding his support for the move.

"Okay, Izzy, what happened with the tech?"

"Well, I think it's my fault because of the portal tracker I put in. Basically, when **you** went through a portal with the tech tracking portals it fed back to the system and created some loop that short circuited everything running on that system. So pretty much everything we use to communicate with and track you through your gear got sucked into that vortex and by the time we rebooted all I could tell was that your remote tech was still offline, remind me that I need to figure out a way to remote reboot that in the future, and no new portals were created so I couldn't even use that to try to guestimate anything. I think I've isolated the code and can put in an exception for it. I'm so sorry, Alec. If I had more thoroughly tested it before rolling it out we could have gotten to you," she trailed off as she tried to fight off tears.

"No, if you had gone busting into his place it would have created an even bigger mess. We're fine. I'm fine. Nothing permanently bad happened. We can find another lead. Don't dwell on this, Iz."

He pulled her into another hug and let her regain her composure.

"Alright, both of you to bed. I feel as exhausted as you look. I don't want to see any of you until tomorrow morning. And then we can get to work. Okay?"

Both of his siblings nodded in agreement and left while he changed into street clothes before heading to the house.

*******Magnus - Glowering at a black jacket hanging on a rack in his store*******

He was resigned, he'd get rid of every single black sku from his lines. He couldn't trust black anymore regardless of how slimming it was or how it worked so well to build an outfit off of. Because black meant liars and betrayal and men with gorgeous tattooed bodies that didn't trust him.

It had been three days since that night. He was torn about whether to tell Cat and Raphael about the identity issue. He didn't want to scare them but there was likely no way Shadowhunter and his team didn't know about them if they knew about him. He really wanted to trust the other vigilante but he wouldn't be able to live with himself if something happened to them because of this. While he warbled in indecision he wouldn't go back out into the field. That was the compromise he made with himself. He wouldn't take a risk until they knew about this risk.

The problem was, Magnus couldn't be sure why he wanted to trust Shadowhunter. Was it because he really believed in the man or was it because, even wrapped in bandages and dying, he was incredibly attractive? His tattoos were like works of art across toned muscle. Especially the one on his neck. Magnus had dreamed of tracing that one with his mouth before working his way down the tattoos that trailed down his torso. If he couldn't trust his libido then he couldn't be sure he should trust the man. Which meant his friends were maybe in danger because of him, again. And he didn't know what to do about it.

"Mr. Bane, sir?" the sales clerk on the floor today approached him, tentatively. Maybe he was glaring too much at the black pants, normally his staff were comfortable around him.

"Yes?" he tried not to snap.

"Umm, there's someone asking for you," they gestured to the counter where the Lightwood detective stood. Brilliant. He knew he couldn't trust that gorgeous traitor.

"I'll handle it, thanks," he said dismissively. "And remove that jacket from the floor."

"Of course, sir."

Magnus strode up to the waiting man actively masking the hostility he was feeling and hopefully managing a cool distance.

"How can I help you, officer?"

"Can we, talk, someplace private?"

"Forgive me if i gave the wrong impression. You're not my type. I'm sure my salesperson can help you with anything else."

"Ha, don't worry. With how far down my brother's throat your tongue was I don't think I could ever get past that image even if I swung that way."

Oh joy. Just what he needed. A reminder of another time he spectacularly failed in avoiding this family. Now the detective had two reasons to hold a grudge against him.

"Here's fine, speak."

"Okay then, so about your portals…"

Magnus slapped a hand over the other man's mouth. "Back to my studio if you insist," he hissed out, his temper rising as he saw the smirk on the other man's face.

Magus gestured to his employee that he'd be up in his studio and herded the detective to the second floor where his work space was.

"You have exactly two minutes to explain why you're here before I send you to Siberia."

"You can really portal someone that far? That's awesome."

"I don't actually know. I've never tried. But worst case you get trapped in some in-between dimension and I never have to deal with you again. Or you get ripped apart atom by atom. I'm actually curious which it'll be. So tempt me. 90 seconds."

"Wait, so look. Here's the deal. A mutual friend of ours is vouching for you so I figured I'd give you the rundown on how things work in this city. Here's my card, it has my direct number on it. You have a hot tip you need out there or you need the police to show up somewhere? You call me and I'll be able to keep you out of any paperwork. I do the same for him already.

In turn, if you do something stupid that makes us have to look at you I'll come here, ask you questions, you'll be absolutely truthful, and if I believe you I'll make it all work out. Okay?"

"He told you?" Magnus was feeling a bit hurt even though he had been telling himself to expect the worst.

"He didn't need to. You don't cover your tracks anywhere near as well as you think you do. Anyone with the right information could make the connection. I know someone who can help muddy the water if you'd like. Help you settle in a bit."

"Why would you do that?"

"I get it. London was different, they made it hard on you. But here? Well, Commissioner Garroway knows sometimes you have to color outside the lines to finish a picture. As long as you're still using paint/pencils/etc and not scissors, if you know what I mean. I'm not telling you to trust me, or anyone. But the fact that I'm here offering you a connection instead of locking you up…"

Magnus couldn't help but snort at that.

"Okay, okay. Trying to lock you up, should tell you to at least take the number and remember what I've said."

This felt weird. He couldn't tell if it was a trap or if he really was just having a hard time trusting because of what had happened in London. Either way, he needed the man out of here so he could think and taking the card seemed the fastest method so he reached out and slipped the card into his pocket.

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Detective."

"You've made out with my brother and I know your secret. You can call me Jace."

"I'll keep that in mind as well, Detective. And your friend," Magnus sighed, hating to have to rely on this stranger who had so much more information than he did. "The one who can muddle things. I take it they already know too?"

"They're how I have all my information."

"Fine. Yes. I'll accept their help."

"Good. I think this'll work out. It was good to formally meet you, Warlock," he said and held out his hand.

"Yes, yes. Sure. Accept one favor and they think you're besties," Magnus muttered and shook the offered hand. "I assume you can find your way out?"

'Yep," the detective said as he moved to leave but then doubled back. "Oh, one more thing."

_Of course. This is where the catch is. Too easy to be true._

Magnus motioned to open a portal.

"Man, no. Wow, we need to work on your trust issues. I just forgot I was supposed to leave you this."

Magnus closed the portal as he watched as the man set a familiar looking stick down on the nearest work table.

"Don't worry. They didn't put a tracker or anything like that in it. Not that they'd need to since they know who you are. But professional courtesy and all."

"Is that his magic wand thingy?" Magnus couldn't help but be curious. He'd recently seen that thing work a minor miracle.

The detective let out a loud bark of laughter. "Oh, he'll hate that. I can't wait to tell him. No. They call it a stele. His team all have them. I do too. You saw him use it the other night, right?"

Magnus nodded.

"It basically acts as an amplifier for the marks on his body. Use it to trace one and that mark's ability gets supercharged. It had negative side effects but if he's ever hurt like that again and you're there, tracing that mark," and Magnus watched as the detective took a pen and a piece of sketch paper, drew the mark he saw previously light up, and set the image next to the stele. "That mark should get him mobile."

"Why would they give me this?"

"Well, it seems they trust you and you've already saved him once at risk to your own team. May as well trust you would be willing to help going forward."

"Uhuh. And I just, draw over it?"

"Yeah. As deliberately and with as much focus as you can, situation willing."

"How many times?" He couldn't help himself. He was curious. And thrown off by the complete openness with which this detective was talking vigilante logistics with him. Plus, it's not everyday you meet someone on earth with abilities.

"Ummm, normally once does it but basically until he isn't actively dying."

"Okay. And the side effects? How would I know if it's too much?"

"Safe to say, it'll never be anything worse than death so as long as he's not dead you did a good job."

_Who the hell are these people? _

He was being so casual about death. Like this happens all the time to Shadowhunter. What the hell was he mixed up in? What the hell had Magnus gotten mixed up in getting mixed up with him?

"It's not bad, I promise. It just uses energy so he'll be tired, drained. Like, if you use your powers too much, I'm sure you get tired too. It's why he's trained so much, so he rarely has to rely on supercharging the marks. Normally he can manage with them running in the background in his body. "

"Oh, okay. Drained is indeed better than dead. Thank them for the trust for me, I guess."

"Will do. And now I'll see myself out," and the man did actually make it to the exit from his studio this time. "Welcome to New York!" he threw over his shoulder as he walked through the door.

"You too," Magnus murmured, attention fully focused on the instrument in front of him and the mark.

*******Magnus - Wanting to be anywhere else but here and having the power to leave but knowing he can't*******

"So, let me get this straight," Raphael said in that casually intense way he managed when he anything but relaxed. "The other vigilante, his entire team, **and a police detective** not only know your identity as Warlock and Magnus but also know mine and Catarina's and the location of this loft and have **actively **visited you at work just to tell you so? Does that about sum it up?'

"Yep," Magnus said awkwardly popping the p.

"And when I said we should remove his mask and goggles as insurance you wouldn't let me anywhere close to him because of the integrity and trust between vigilantes?"

"Something like that."

"So now we can probably assume we are known by both the most intimidating vigilante team we've ever met in this city or any other and by the police?"

"Well, it's probably only that one detective based on how he said things work."

"Oh, how reassuring. We're only on one cop's list. Plus a lethal vigilante and whatever insane team he has supporting him. And don't forget. We don't have any idea what his m.o. is or why he does things or how he does things besides the vague info the detective told you about his magic stick and his magic tattoos and his training so he doesn't even **need** the magic tattoos."

"It's called a stele, apparently."

"Yes, because that's the important thing here. That he can magically heal with a 'stele' and not that you've run into him in not one but two gunfights and he's tried taking people captive in both **and knows who we are**."

"I honestly think we can trust him. I know London was bad but these guys seem honest."

"Yeah, sure. You think we can trust him. Remember what happened last time you trusted someone?"

"Raphael," Cat tried to interject.

"No, he needs to hear this. You remember, Magnus? What happened when you trusted someone from the outside who had powers with you identity? Remember how well that turned out? Remember Camille? Remember Ragnor?"

"We can't put that on Magnus. The extenuating circumstances..."

"Like hell we can't. He's the one who listened with the wrong head and trusted that snake…"

"You know that's not how it was."

"He trusted her and Ragnor is dead because Ragnor trusted him. And now he has the hots for the sexy shadow man and thinks he can trust him because of it."

Magnus couldn't even fight back against that. He was thankful that Cat tried but, really, nothing Raphael said was false. Even if his recollection of that period was hazy he knew the facts enough to know that.

"Raphael, stop now," Cat said firmly.

"No, no. Forget that. Forget this. And forget him. You can stick around, Catarina, and let him get you killed because he mistakes lust for trust but I'm done. Fool me once, Ragnor dies. Fool me twice? I'm not going to be the next Ragnor and neither should you, Cat. I'm out."

"Raphael," Magnus weakly tried but it was too late. The young man had already slammed his way out of the loft and he couldn't bring himself to follow. "Cat, I…"

"I know, Mangus. So does he. He'll be back and until then I'll keep an eye on him. I trust you so if your gut feels good about this then I'm on board. Just, don't go out again as Warlock until Raphael is back, okay? He's worried about our little family and you won't let him actively assist so he feels helpless. Just, lay low until this blows over."

"I will, thanks Cat. I honestly don't know what I would do without you."

"Well, you'd be dead but I'm used to the dangers of working with you by now. I know what I signed up for. I'll be in touch about Raphael until he's ready to hear your apology, alright?"

Magnus nodded and hugged the woman. He really didn't deserve either of them. He couldn't blame Raphael for his anger and he could only worship Cat for her calm during this.

After Cat left he got very drunk. Just because this went as poorly as he had expected didn't mean it didn't hurt to hear all those things. He didn't want to be wrong this time, was truly beginning to believe he wasn't, but Raphael had been very right about the past.

_Hello again, all. Don't worry. I won't keep Magnus in the dark much longer ;)_


	6. Episode 6

_Dramatically convenient timing is the best plot device. This is on the longer side of what I normally do for a chapter but I didn't want to cut it any shorter._

*******Magnus - Trying to sketch and not think about two separate men he shouldn't want*******

Magnus felt so guilty to be standing in his studio, working on his dream and thinking of two attractive men he shouldn't want when he hadn't heard from Raphael in over a day. He shouldn't have expected him to forgive him easily but normally the young man was too concerned with Magnus' safety to leave him to his own devices. So he tried sketching while his brain ping-ponged between guilty worrying about Raphael and thinking about his kiss with the awkward Lightwood and the protective way Shadowhunter had thrown him out of the way of danger not once but twice that night.

If he was being honest, he had had a few dreams about both men. Both offered different tones. A sweet, slow, warm lovemaking with Alec the brother of a police detective Lightwood and rough, intense pleasure with the vigilante who knew very dangerous secrets about him and the people he cares about Shadowhunter. And he shouldn't be wanting either. But when he wasn't thinking about that he was failing to distract himself from his crushing guilt. Life sucked.

He wasn't too far on his next collection but already art was reflecting life. He had drawn up a pattern of slashing markings that would be strategically placed to highlight the lines of the body, like how that neck tattoo traced Shadowhunter's jaw and neck. And it would be in every single color Alexander **should** be wearing if he actually dressed for his undertones.

Sleek and sexy weren't new for him so it wasn't too much of a deviation from his past collections. Hopefully neither man paid enough attention to his day job to notice the obvious inspiration, not that he really had to worry about Alexander picking up on a collection practically designed to compliment him. His siblings on the other hand...maybe they'd buy the whole collection for their less fashion conscious brother, that would be a win win for Magnus.

_Hm, what about cutouts? _

He felt his phone vibrate and he pulled it out quickly, hoping for Raphael and at least expecting an update from Cat.

**Cat (12:38 PM): **Have you heard from Raphael?

That was not at all encouraging. He tapped the phone icon and it connected on the other end.

"No, I haven't. Why? Haven't you?"

"I haven't and he's not at his place. I just went by to check on him. I'm sure it's nothing. Don't start fretting yet."

"I don't like this, Cat."

"I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sure he's just angry at me as well for siding with you."

"Maybe...one sec, one of my employees needs my attention. Let me get rid of them."

"Okay."

Magnus put the phone down to go see what the girl wanted. Maybe there was an issue on the floor or a VIP client.

"What's up?"

"Someone just dropped this letter off for you. It came by courier so I figured it may be important so I didn't want to just let it sit around. Sorry for interrupting."

"No, you did just right. Thank you, my dear."

"You're welcome!" she chirped and went back to the floor.

Magnus opened the letter and perused it on the way back to the phone but paused. He went cold as the words sunk in.

"_Magnus, my love. You can run, but you can't hide. And neither can you little friend. If you want him back come to me at xxxxxxxx. Come alone. If you don't I won't be responsible for what happens to him._

_Love, Camille"_

Magnus crumpled the letter and incinerated it in a ball of fire before picking up the phone again.

"Cat, you know how I promised I wouldn't go back out until things were resolved? I won't be able to keep that promise."

"What?! Magnus, what's going on?"

"Camille has him and I can't let her hurt him."

"Okay, okay, calm down. We can call that Shadow guy and make a plan and get him back. Don't do anything rash."

"No, Cat. She said to come alone and we both know she'll follow through on her threats if I don't listen. I'm sorry. I'll get him back for you."

He hung up.

*******Alec - Trying to listen to Izzy talk about how she fixed the tech glitch*******

Alec loved his sister, he did. But what she found fun was vastly different from his idea of fun. She found parties and physics fun, somehow she had managed to claim both of those. Because she is amazing. But also amazingly boring when talking about line by line code changes.

"So I put in the exception like we discussed but also ended up setting up a redundancy in the process so that if one loop goes down it'll shunt you over to the other that doesn't have the portal code in it which should keep you up and running while I troubleshoot. And, in case that doesn't work I can now ping the power cells of your equipment from here and hard reset them so worst case scenario we can at least talk and you won't be without power to your goggles."

He was happy when his phone interrupted before he noticed it was his Super Secret Special Shadowhunter Phone, named by Jace. That was never good. And it was a number he didn't know. He put the phone up to his ear.

"Is this the shadow man?" a female voice asked from the other end.

Alec sighed, "Yes, who is this?"

"I'm a friend of Warlock's. He said you gave him this number to call if he ever needed help, yes?"

"Catarina?" Alec said, guessing based on the file Izzy had complied of known associates.

"Yes."

"Is he in trouble?" Alec straightened up waving Izzy away for the moment so he could fully focus. She put on a pair of headphones and listened in from the screens instead so she could be ready to act if needed.

"Yes, a woman named Camille took one of our friends and is holding him captive to lure Warlock out."

"He didn't go, did he?"

"I tried insisting on calling you first but he didn't listen."

"Why would he be so stupid?"

"You'll have to ask him that. Maybe it's a trust issue because of the whole identity thing," Alec cringed. "Also, apparently he was told to come alone and he's an idiot but a noble idiot."

Alec was up and moving to grab his gear, "Do you know where he is or where he's heading?"

"No, he left his tracer behind. Like I'd follow him or something. I'd be useless to him out there."

"Ugggg, okay. I'm on it," he turned to Izzy who had been listening in on her headset. "We're patching you into the main speakers."

There was a crackle as Izzy pressed a few buttons and the call was transferred to speakers in front of the screens that the both of them could hear and talk through leaving him hands free to suit up.

"Can you trace him with that stick you gave him? He may have had that on him."

"We gave him a stele?" he mouthed at Izzy who nodded and mouthed, "Jace".

"We meant it when we said we didn't tag it with a tracker. Wouldn't do to break his trust so easily if he or one of his friends had the ability to examine the stele for stuff like that," she replied.

"Wonderful, so he's basically dead," the woman on the phone said sounding defeated.

"Don't count us out just yet. I'm running a trace on his portal signature now."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah, it's kinda the other reason I didn't put a tracker in the stele. No need since his signature is really obvious. Got him! Just a few minutes ago," Izzy announced with a fist pump of triumph.

"Okay, I'm heading out. Have our police contact looped in and on standby with a team just in case. Don't worry, Catarina," he addressed the woman on the other end of the phone call, "I'll bring them both home."

"Okay, be careful with her. She's got this weird ability to sway him. I'm not sure how it works but if you have a tattoo or something to help you steel your mind you should probably use it."

"Got it, Eye, keep the line open so she gets updates as you do, okay?" Alec directed only barely remembering to call Izzy by her code name. They were pretty lazy about it. Really it had just happened when Izzy became Iz became I which they made Eye as some sort of cover as their operation became more standardized. Not that that was important at the moment.

"Got it," Izzy replied. "Catarina? Hi, you can call me Eye. It sounds like we're hanging out together so if you think of anything let me know."

Alec swiped his stele over the mark on the back of his hand he used to conceal all his markings so he didn't walk about completely exposed all the time, traced over his marks for speed, endurance, and a few others that he used in unsure situations, finished throwing on his gear and weapons, and looked at the most efficient path Izzy's program had mapped out to the old hotel the last portal signature was pinned at. He then headed out, Izzy in his ear.

*******Magnus - An abandoned ballroom? Really? How dramatic*******

He didn't see Camille but the room was big and filled with items stuck here for storage before the building had been closed. He did see Raphael tied to a chair in the middle of the room bathed in light from the setting sun through one of the two story tall windows.

"Did she, get to you? Like she did me?" he asked as he slowly approached.

"Don't insult me. My disinterest is a superpower in its own right and no drug pusher is going to change that."

"Why didn't you just, run away."

"Oh, why didn't I think of that? Thank goodness you're here, walking into a trap, alone. You see, Magnus. This is what I was talking about with you."

"Did she hurt you?"

"I used a nice little trick called wire across his path as he tried to run away," came a familiar voice from a dark side of the room. A woman with pale white skin, dark black hair, and ruby red lips clicked out to join them in the middle of the room. Her heels looked killer, not in a good way, and her body-con dress somehow managed to be free of all the dust that was sitting around the abandoned room. Magnus was immediately on guard.

She smacked Raphael lightly on the head. "And I don't dirty my hands with drugs."

"Oxytocin is basically a drug the way you use it. Really, you should soliloquy less, it's not a good look even if you're just killing time talking to a hostage. Do you know, Magnus, before you got here she would not shut up about how genius her ability is?" He was talking a lot for Raphael which meant he was trying to keep Magnus' focus on him. He was worried.

"You make my talent sound so crude. You always were my least favorite, you know. Hanging on to Magnus, depending on him so much."

"I'm here Camille. Let him go."

"And let him rescue you like he did last time? I don't think so. Come here, Magnus," she said, her eyes darkening and flashing in his direction.

Magnus tried resisting but he felt the familiar pull towards the woman worm its way into his mind. He was still too weak to resist it, even after everything that had happened.

"Magnus, don't listen to her," Raphael said sounding more frantic than he had before.

"Shut up, brat," Camille responded. "Magnus, you want to come with me, right? You can help me run my business again and we'll never have to deal with demanding hangers ons, right?"

Magnus found himself nodding. It all sounded very reasonable.

"Then you won't mind taking care of this inconvenience, right?"

A little voice screamed at him to stop. To open a portal and escape with Raphael. But that voice was being choked in a hazy pink fog telling him he did want to do what Camille was suggesting. After all, he loved Camille and Raphael was trying to keep them apart. He lit up a flaming orb and aimed.

*******Alec - Wondering who exactly in the scene below was a threat*******

He had stalked along the balcony level of the ballroom to scope out the scene and the tableau in front of him was a bit confusing.

"Catarina, we're seeing a woman with a man tied to a chair and Magnus not doing anything," Izzy narrated in his ear. "Alec, Catarina says it's very likely Magnus has fallen under Camille's control somehow if they are still there so not to trust him and to get Raphael out ASAP."

He nodded, hoping Izzy saw the shift in his vision and got the confirmation. The information came just in time because he couldn't hear what they were saying but he saw Magnus build one of his orbs and aim at his friend in the chair.

_Well, that's not good at all._

He didn't have a choice, he aimed across Magnus' hands, the arrow disrupting the formation of the orb and getting three sets of eyes on him. He jumped down from the second level, diving over the railing and landing with a roll to pop up in position, aiming another arrow at the woman in one swift movement.

"Hi, you must be Camille," he said, trying to keep all the attention on himself and away from the hostage as he straightened up and trained the arrow at her heart.

"Oh, Magnus, have you made a new friend? Hello, lovely. You do look like a snack."

Alec saw her eyes flash at him, could sense she was releasing some sort of energy, hoped the marks running in the background were enough, but nothing happened.

"I don't know what you're trying to do but you need to let them both go before I decide taking you in alive isn't a priority."

"It really isn't," said the man in the chair, probably Raphael.

"Yeah, well, I try to keep my kill count down."

"You're joking," Raphael said looking at him in disbelief. "You're the scary archer that exacts vengeance from the shadows."

Alec rolled his eyes, not that they could be seen from behind his goggles. One of these days he'd have to get Izzy to clear up those rumors. It could end up causing Jace trouble even if it was convenient when staring down a bad guy.

"Are you gay or something?" the woman hissed, voice filled with frustration and effort as she kept staring and flashing her eyes at him.

"So what? Wait," he looked back and forth between the woman, Raphael, and Magnus who had an eerily vacant look in his eyes, their gorgeous gold dimmed. "Are you telling me her powers only work on people who are attracted to women? Seriously? How weak."

"Not the time for jokes or taunting, Big Bro," he heard in his hear. Izzy was right, he had just been so shocked. He had really expected a bigger challenge.

"'Tell me about it," Raphael said. "It's like, the lamest power ever. I just found out the extent tonight. Magnus never really filled me in on all the details or I would have just handled her myself long ago."

"I'm right here," Camille shrieked.

"Yeah, a bit busy ignoring you. Which, hey, it sounds like I can do that without even trying, I don't even think the mark I have specifically for blocking attacks like yours picked you up as a threat. But thanks for reminding me. Unless you have literally any other ability I'd suggest getting down on the ground right now so I can tie you up before the cops get here."

"Fine, ignore me but it won't be so easy to ignore him. You're on Valentine's list anyway. If I get rid of you he'll owe me one. It's just good business."

An explosion hit Alec from behind and he went flying. Recovering, he turned as saw Magnus prepping another orb.

"Shadowhunter guy," Raphael yelled at him. "Magus is bi. So, um, definitely susceptible to her gift."

"Crap, okay." Alec dodged the next orb but then took the third as he saw it aimed at Raphael who was still tied up.

In those distracted moments Camille had found a way to escape. Alec cursed himself for letting his guard drop in his relief.

"Uhhh, hey, tied up guy? Raphael? Any way to snap him out of this?" he asked as he tried dodging and aiming tranq arrows at Magnus while defending the hostage and taking any orbs he had to in doing so.

"Well, with her getting further and further away it may be easy enough to overpower her influence, break the hold, maybe. Honestly, last time I just hit him really hard from behind and threw him in the ocean and the almost drowning bit kicked in his self preservation but unless you have a moment to untie me I can't really manage that."

""Break it how?" he huffed taking another orb and feeling his stamina waning. "Break it how?!" he yelled and looked at the man. Seriously, he couldn't think and defend at the same time, the man needed to help. Fighting someone who could portal didn't leave him much time to move to intercept attacks and moving Raphael would be futile if he couldn't get him far enough away in one movement.

Raphael gave him a long stare and rolled his eyes. "Well, he's bi...please don't make me spell this out for you."

"What? How does that have anything to do with…"

"He's saying overpower him with a conflicting source of lust, you idiot!" his sister screamed in his ear.

"Oh...ooooooooooh." Alec dropped his bow and charged at Magnus.

Magnus portled out of the way.

"Don't you have a mark for being fast or good at catching people or something?"

"Hitting someone who can portal is harder than it looks!" His life had actually become a joke.

It meant taking another orb directly to his chest from close range when he was already suffering some damage but Alec got in reach of Mangus and tackled him to the ground. It felt like he did nothing but tackle the man for his own good while letting his intended target get away anymore. Magnus squirmed and tried to hit him yet again at point blank range without any consideration for the damage he'd likely do to himself with the explosion but Alec didn't let him.

He pulled down his mask and pressed his lips to the other man's and felt first a stilling and then an enthusiastic return of the kiss. He knew it was entirely a kiss of practicality but he could smell the other man, a hint of sandalwood, and Alec let it go on for a bit longer than was likely necessary before he pulled back just enough, still holding the other vigilante in place.

"You good now?"

"Hm, I'm not sure. I may need another taste just to be on the safe side," came a breathy reply as the man under him smirked and leaned up to continue.

Alec's brain was pretty much fried for the moment so he let him, superhuman reflexes be damned. Just because he remembered the kiss in the club didn't mean he was inoculated against his body's reactions and he let his weight more fully fall against Magnus. The surprisingly muscular body molded under his and Alec found he liked how their heights aligned, all his awkwardly long angles finding comfortable resting places along Magnus. The ache in his chest intensified from where he had taken a few hits.

"He's fine," called Raphael.

Suddenly very aware that they had an audience and his sister listening in he scurried away from his previously prone position on top of the man. He was never the type for public displays but this was twice now and he couldn't find it in himself to regret either. This man was dangerous, not because he was a vigilante who was obviously mixed up in something although also because of that, but because Alec wasn't acting like himself and that was a problem with so much at risk.

"Spoil sport," Magnus bemoaned as he stood up and walked over to his friend to start working on his bindings.

"Let me," Alec said pulling out one of his knives, flipped it in his hand unnecessarily while wondering again who he had become, and breaking through the bonds quickly.

"What a prince charming," Magnus said standing next to him, close enough that Alec could feel his body heat.

"I'm not a damsel," Raphael complained while rubbing at his wrists to help bring circulation back.

"Of course you're not, dear. I am. I'm the one he kissed."

"God dammit, since when did my life become a freaking fairy tale," he mumbled. Izzy laughed in his ear.

"Well, as much as I enjoyed our time here together, Shadowhunter, I think we should get out of here, yes? I have my people to take care of and I'm sure your team will have lots to talk to you about."

Alec watched as Magnus snapped his fingers and waved for a portal to open. The three of them stepped through to an unfortunately familiar location for Alec. It was the far gardens behind the Lightwood family mansion, pretty close to where the main entrance to his lair was located. Plenty of pictures of the house in magazines and profiles showed this exact side.

"My, my, my. Looks like my knight does practically live in a castle. I do like the gothic chic. Very brooding vigilante."

Alec didn't know what to say. He way trying not to blush and also to look completely lost and failing at both.

"Why did you bring me to this place? Where are we?" he forced out mechanically crossing his arms in extreme discomfort.

Magnus walked right up to him, laid a hand on his bicep, and whispered in his ear, "Like I could forget what kissing you feels like."

Alec flamed red and pulled his mask back up in reflex.

"Don't worry, darling. I'm not disappointed in the least," he said with a wink before opening another portal that he and Raphael disappeared through.

_Shit._

A moment later a small portal popped in front of him and a piece of paper fell out of it right before closing.

_Call me ;) xxx-xxx-xxxx _

_Warlock_

_**Shit.**_

*******Author After*******

_At first I was like, is Camille's power too cheesy? Is this whole battle too cheesy? And then I remembered there's a gun that shoots gold in CW DC and the Legends fought a Unicorn and fourth dimensional beings are introduced just so a musical episode can happen so no more holding back on the cliche from me._

_I'm always torn on how to portray Camille because I have read the books and there's that one story in The Bane Chronicles that I'm always tempted to play on. But I went pretty Freeform here._


	7. Episode 7

*******Magnus - Very much blaming himself even if he had managed some bravado as all of this was his fault, again*******

"Magnus, this wasn't your fault."

"My evil ex kidnaps you and I let her manipulate me into almost killing you, but okay, it's not my fault."

They stopped arguing for a moment to let Catarina check them both over. She applied some ointment to Raphael's wrists but other than that gave them the okay to continue as she sat, ready to mediate if necessary.

"No, what Camille did is not your fault. What is your fault is not telling us exactly how her powers worked in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"If we had known? If I had known? I could have handled it, we could have had a plan in place."

"I told you everything I knew though."

Did Raphael think he would withhold that from them? That he would let shame and guilt keep him from giving them everything he could to help protect them?

"Do you, do you not know how they work?"

"Sorry, dear. The minds always a little fuzzy when it comes to remembering what she can do. Must be trying to block out all the trauma," he joked, hating himself even more.

Magnus felt ashamed of both his weakness in falling to her, again, and his apparent lack of understanding when both Raphael and Shadowhunter, **Alexander Lightwood my goodness**, had had no issues resisting. But he simply didn't know much about how she did things, business or super. It was always such a fog around the memories.

"Ohhhh," said Cat. "So that's why you've always said it's like you're in a haze and can't figure her out. You literally are with her. It takes someone immune to her to be able to see through it."

"Yeah, sounds like it. And everyone is immune to her but me."

He felt miserable, he had almost lost another friend because of that viper and he'd been helpless to stop it. He had tried meditation, building up mental blocks through visualization, and nothing had even slowed him down from jumping when Camille so much as looked at him.

"Magnus, since it seems obvious to everyone but you, let me clue you in to what seems to have been weighing on you since Ragnor," Cat continued. "Camille's powers didn't work on me previously because I don't like women. They did not work on Raphael because he is both asexual and aromantic and could not care less about a woman. They did not work on your vigilante friend because he is, as he very much admitted, gay, thus, no women. Tonight, that just left you."

"They...only work on people who are attracted to women? But wait, Ragnor…"

"Yes, but she didn't want Ragnor, did she. She wanted you back then and still does now," Raphael interrupted. "And now that we know exactly how she works there's no way anyone can possibly think to blame you for that." He looked remorseful.

"So let me get this straight, I'm at risk and you're all not because I swing both ways?'

"Something like that, yes," Cat confirmed.

"Magnus, I'm sorry, about the other night. About what I said. I knew I shouldn't blame you then and now it's even worse, the insinuations I made."

"It's alright, my dear boy. I should have been more careful, like you told me to be."

"And you should let him tag along with you until Camille is captured," Cat stated.

"No, I don't think…"

"No, she's right. If I'm immune and you're not you're more of a danger on the streets than I am. It's either me or that Shadowhunter guy and I don't think you'll be getting an invitation to his group anytime soon with the headache you've been for him."

"Well, actually, if we're sharing everything we know, and you won't believe this but I swear it's true…"

*******Alec - Trying to ignore two giggling siblings while he makes a very important call*******

"Shut up, the both of you, or I'm throwing you out of my lair."

He had given a full rundown of the evening, skirting over some of the less important details that Izzy took gleeful delight in interrupting him with her point of view for. Most of the time it was very useful for her to be able to see through his goggles. While he was kissing a man out of some hypnotic mind control state was not one of them.

Once he got to the part about Magnus definitely knowing who he was they got a bit more serious before Jace asked the all important question.

"How did he guess?"

He stumbled through a vague explanation, apparently the whisper had not been picked up thank heavens for small miracles, which didn't fool either sibling and both of them lost it once it became clear Magnus had identified him through kiss alone.

"I knew letting that drunk kiss happen was a mistake that would come back to haunt you," Jace said while wiping tears from his eyes.

"Well, now you have to bring him into the fold. No avoiding it. I doubt he'll leave you alone now that he knows," Izzy added while gasping for air. "After all, you're his prince charming with a kiss magical enough to break a spell."

"Alec, enough of this cloak and dagger avoiding him. After this escapade I'd say our teams are fully interwoven. Plus, you said that Camille lady mentioned Valentine so if that's any sort of a lead we can't just ignore it just because you're embarrassed."

Jace did make a point.

"Fine, I'll call him in the morning, right now I need some sleep because I kept getting hit in the chest with those stupid orbs."

"More like in the heart," Jace quipped.

"And you two can't be here for it," Alec said with his most stern leader big brother voice.

And yet somehow, here the three of them were, in his lair, the pair of them dying with laughter making him even more uncomfortable as he dialed the number Magnus had left in his pocket on his Super Secret Special Shadowhunter Phone.

It rang exactly once before he heard Magnus' voice on the other end. "You've reached Warlock, may I ask who's calling?"

He really didn't want to play this game. There was no way Magnus didn't have this emergency number programmed into his emergency phone.

"So, um, I don't know how much of that encounter you remember but that Camille person mentioned someone I've been trying to track down. A guy by the name of Valentine? And it, sounds like your problem is mixed up in my problem. The way I see it, it'd be smart if we, pool our resources and information."

"Alexander, darling, are you suggesting we team up?"

Alec raked his hand through his hair. This was worse than being shot. Just hearing his name come out of the other man's mouth was making him feel flickers of the memory of both the kisses.

"Don't, use my real name on secret lines please, **Warlock**."

"Ah, sorry, sorry. Does the big, strong, scary Shadowhunter want to team up?"

"This was a bad idea. Never mind." He glared at his siblings who had the decency to read the tension and look at him worriedly.

"No! Wait, yes. Info sharing, etc. I'm game. My place or yours?"

Alec heaved the largest of sighs. He felt like a teenager with his emotions swinging back and forth between angst and a school age crush.

"Well, seeing as how I've been to your base of operations and it's an apartment with no security and mine is a subterranean, high tech headquarters with state of the art surveillance measures I'd suggest mine," he said dryly.

"Great! When does that detective brother of yours get off."

"Jace, when do you get off work?'

"Well, if I leave now I'll actually still be on time so I should be home around 6:30?"

"Seven work for you?"

"I'll bring my team and some refreshments and be over then!"

"This isn't a tea party, just bring your intel."

"A coffee man. Roger, roger. Warlock, over and out." And the call ended.

Alec had to resist letting his head fall to the raised table in front of him and then repeating the movement multiple times until things got back to normal, settling for leaning forward on it with head hung instead.

"See, that wasn't so bad," Izzy said patting him on the shoulder.

"Want me to pick up pizza for the party tonight?"

Alec glared at Jace but couldn't really manage any sort of strength behind the look.

"I'm getting pizza. Izzy, find some streamers or something. We need to make the place festive. Our brother is getting a superhero partner!"

*******Magnus - Wearing what some friends who will remain unnamed have called an outlandish costume*******

"Why are you dressed like Warlock's useless, lothario cousin again?' Raphael asked as Magnus portled their trio to the decorative looking grotto in the far back corner of the Lightwood estate built partly into the hill the mansion sat atop.

"It's a business meeting. Best foot forward and all that."

He thought he looked rather reserved in a lovely tailored navy suit with gold, silky shirt (that was, okay, maybe open to right above his naval) and matching pocket square. His hair with just one subtle, non-glittery gold streak. He wore all his normal rings, of course, and a few staple necklaces but nothing else besides that. Even his shoes were subdued. Okay, maybe his makeup was a bit dramatic but Alexander had drunkenly complimented his eyes once so they absolutely had to pop and well, he'd be talking a lot so a good lip was a must. But really, he'd only used bronzer today that had a hint of shimmer, quite low key for what he was capable of.

"Yes, must put the best foot forward when meeting your new boyfriend the serial killer."

Magnus huffed at that, not deigning to acknowledge either part of the statement. He wasn't his boyfriend, he was merely his short term partner and not even in that way. And Magnus was almost certain he hadn't actually seen him ever kill anyone.

"Raphael, either complain about him not having backup or complain about who he chooses but don't do both. I don't have the bandwidth to listen to you bicker both sides," Cat said, bringing up the rear as they walked up.

Detective Lightwood stood outside, casually, like he normally waited in the dusk for clandestine meetings. Which, with who he worked with, could be entirely accurate.

"You're late," he said before leading them in a few feet and opening a latch in the false back wall of the miniature cave revealing an elevator.

"Traffic in this city. Terrible at this time of night," Magnus said lightly, leading his little crew into the opening.

Jace just smirked and followed them in before closing the wall and engaging the elevator. It took them down what felt like a few stories, walls open except for bars to keep them from falling out, and they could see after a short, enclosed shaft the space opened up into rock walls and eventually set down at the end of a short hall which connected to a cave almost as large as Magnus' loft and taller by a story at least.

The area was a combination of exposed rock and modern tech. One wall held weapons and clothing and a second hallway. Another had a large splay of monitors, computers, sensors, wires, and machines. A third wall, the one containing the opening to their hallway, had cabinets, a small kitchenette, and an assortment of miscellany. The fourth wall was missing as it seemed to curve into another space filled with an impressive display of gym equipment. In the middle of the space were work tables.

And standing against those tables is Alexander, staring directly at him, arms crossed and covered in markings, without masks or goggles. It wasn't until that moment that Magnus had really considered how his brain would reconcile the two, would take both men he had been thinking about and merge them together. It didn't matter how it did it because what was in front of him was one god damn perfect man who he would be working with. How could this possibly go wrong?

*******Jace - Actually not here just to watch his brother struggle to brood while blushing*******

As he approached with the new trio he saw his siblings both preparing themselves for the first formal meeting, could see the gears turning in both of their heads. Alec doing everything he possibly could to not show that he felt naked, because of his marks and lack of mask, and excited, because of an obvious reason following Jace inside. Izzy, doing her level best to not bounce with the itch she felt to get this going where she sat on the edge of the table next to Alec.

They had agreed ahead of time that he would start things off. Well, it had been two to one, Izzy had fought for the privilege but he and Alec both knew if she was in charge she'd spirit Magnus away and run hours of diagnostics until he broke every piece of equipment she had for measuring things and the rest of them would awkwardly sit eating pizza. When Izzy was being a social butterfly she could balance a crowd's attention, making each person feel special. When Izzy was interested in something she could be more laser focused than Alec.

And nobody would dream of making the argument that Alec should try to lead the darn thing. Most of all Alec. Even still, it was nice to have moments where his inarguably amazing brother showed such casual implicit trust.

"Okay, for starters let's get everyone settled so we can nail down the agenda for this evening. Guys, if you'll just have a seat," he gestured to one of the tables with six chairs around it. "And feel free to grab some food and drink, this could be a long night," he finished with a sweep of his hand indicating pizza boxes and a large salad sitting on the counter and the refrigerator that had been stocked with a little bit of everything.

"One moment, dears," Magnus replied, snapping and waving his way first one way through a portal and then back through a second with a drink cart. "I did promise tea and snacks. I have coffee too, of course."

Jace tensed before nothing there was no alcohol. That would be one way to get on Alec's bad side immediately, drinking in his lair, his place of business and headquarters for his serious, sacred duty. But it was just warm beverages and cookies.

"So I take it you have to have seen the place to be able to open a portal to it?" Izzy asked as she began to tap away on a tablet.

"At least a picture of it, although it's more tiresome if I haven't seen the place myself. I used google earth to get here tonight and it's hard not to have seen this place if you live in the city but I was not lugging this thing through your backyard so it had to wait a bit."

"Impressive, so it's a mental thing and not some navigation by some magical grid you're tapped into?"

"Iz, agenda. I promise you'll have your Magnus time."

"Fiiiiine, do your thing."

Alec had already taken his seat at one end of the table with just a bottle of water, they had talked about seating arrangements as well and Jace had known Alec at the end with Izzy and himself on either side of the table next to him would give him a comforting bracket of support. With an arrangement of food and drinks in hand everyone else joined him, Magnus and friends mimicking the arrangement so the two vigilantes were facing each other with team members on either side. Everyone had a tablet in front of them that Izzy explained were linked to her main system so notes could be shared and documents accessed.

"So, I think the first rule is that we should use code names as much as possible so we don't slip up because of the unfamiliarity in the heat of the moment. Sound good?" He was relieved when nobody argued. With how particular his brother could be he hadn't been sure what to expect from another vigilante. But nobody seemed to question him leading things so far.

"Good, so general introductions first. You know Alec, code name Shadowhunter. Some of you know Izzy, code name Eye. I'm Jace, don't technically have a code name but normally we just generally refer to me as the police contact when talking on comms."

"His code name is Duck," Izzy interjected.

"No, it's not," he said kicking her under the table.

"Yes it is, moving on," she turned her attention to the other three not giving Jace the chance to argue the point without it turning into a whole sibling thing which wasn't the tone they needed right now.

"Well, hopefully you know me but as a refresher since we're being so formal, Magnus Bane aka Warlock. These are my dear friends Raphael Santiago and Catarina Loss, no code names as of yet but I have many ideas if there's a brainstorming portion to the evening."

The man named Raphael grimaced a bit while the woman just took a sip of his drink and said, "You can call me Cat until then."

"Okay, great. Nice to meet or re-meet everyone. For the rest of the evening I think we should do a high level skills assessment then break open our respective information silos and see what can be useful. That way we don't get off on some planning tangent without knowing what all we have to work with."

He sees Alec nod and even relax a little. This was just another mission strategy session, albeit with a few more people, and the flow he was setting was partly to help Alec, and everyone else, get comfortable. He had been involved in plenty of cross team operations in the NYPD with his unofficial status as point man for all things vigilante and that was coming in handy.

"So, we have our two field operative. Sorry, forgive the lingo. We'll need a rundown of abilities and probably a demonstration later. Warlock, Eye has a bunch of tests she'd like to run based on what your powers have already done to some of our tech but that can happen at a later date depending on how late this goes."

"I've messed with some of your gadgets, have I?"

Alec spoke up for the first time really the whole evening, probably just to cut Izzy off, "The night you guys saved my life our whole remote system fell apart because I went through one of your portals. I ended up being MIA to them until I made it back here. Long story short, she has ideas but with you now in play it'd be best to test them in a dry run to see if they break before going into the field."

"Ah, I see. Well, the life saving was a bit mutual, darling. But understandable."

"Obviously," Jace continued once the interchange ended, "you and Shadowhunter will need to train together to work on the best way to fight as well so you're not stepping on each other's toes as much."

"And me," the man named Raphael stated.


	8. Episode 8

_The next chapter or two may be a bit detail heavy but fear not, I will not stop until our boys are living their best lives. Hopefully I'm able to provide enough humor to bridge to the next bit of action._

*******Magnus - Trying to remember that it's not very effective to portal a speedster to get rid of him*******

Everything had been going smoothly. The detective brother was doing a perfectly fine job smoothing over what would have been a terribly awkward event had he or Alexander, no, Shadowhunter, been in charge. The whole code name thing would be a struggle as his brain almost refused to call the man anything other than his given name, hopefully the mask in the field would alleviate that.

They had just agreed to a loose agenda and begun to lead into talks on their skill sets, discussing the two of them that would be in the field first when he heard "And me" come from next to him. He looked at Raphael in horror. They had **talked **about this. Raphael had said him **or **Shadowhunter.

"No," he felt himself say. "We talked about this. I'll have Al...Shadowhunter."

"We've talked about a lot of things. I made my own decision. I'm out there until Camille is dealt with."

"He's also immune," Magnus said feeling his control slip a bit as he gestured towards the other vigilante. "You don't need to go risking yourself…"

"Great. Then the two of us can go out and **you** can stay back and watch, safely at home."

"You know you're being unreasonable. Shadowhunter and I are trained…"

"Yeah, no offense to Shadowhunter, but I'm not losing you just because you are a tad bit overprotective. Normally, I trust you can candle things but until she's gone you get him and you get me. End of discussion."

"Wait, you have abilities?" Eye asked. Magnus mentally sighed at the stiffness with which his brain called her that. It would take some getting used to.

"They're not relevant here."

"I'm a speedster. A really damn fast one, not that I know any others to compare to. And I'm quiet about it, no race car noises or anything when I approach."

"Oh wow, that is actually really handy." Great, now Alec no Shadowhunter was looking impressed and interested and he was definitely not just the tiniest bit jealous.

"It doesn't matter. He's not trained to fight. All he has is speed and that was easily handled by a wire across an alley if you recall. That's all it took for Camille to get him."

"I'm not trained because you won't let me come out with you."

"I get being protective but if it's training then I can handle that," Alexander no, uggg, forget it, Alexander supplied, traitorously.

"You're supposed to side with me on this! It'll be hard enough figuring out how the two of us can fit together and you want to add a trainee speedster to the equation?"

"You all have points," Jace jumped in much earlier than Cat would. Normally Cat let's them tire themselves out a bit first. "But, in the end, it's better to have all your resources as ready as possible in case they are ever needed. Raphael, what do you currently do in the system you have with Magnus?"

"Twiddle my thumbs at his place just in case he sends an SOS so I can race in as a worst case fallback plan."

"Hm, Shadowhunter, you think you can drill some basic technique into him?"

"He can't be worse than Eye."

"I was fine."

"You insisted on wearing heels."

"Practice how you plan to proceed. Would have been pointless to learn any self defense if I couldn't do any of it in my normal outfits."

"Fair, yeah, I can make time if he can," Alexander said, confirming with his brother and nodding at Raphael.

"Excellent, Warlock, I know it may have been difficult in the past but we have a lot of information when we go into the field. We can find a compromise. Some middle ground where he's not part of plan A but we find him the best possible location to be plan B from. Between Eye and myself, we can work on entrance and exit strategies."

"What Duck said," Izzy said with a teasing glint in her eye.

"Not my code name."

"He's right. He has tactical experience. I have maps, floor plans, heat tracking, cameras, everything required to be prepared for most things and now that we have you three here as well that takes magical vigilantes portaling in unexpectedly off the table. That gets rid of the biggest tactical issue we've run into in the recent past. We can make this work."

"Magnus, at least until she's gone. Please."

He couldn't take the sincerity in the younger man's voice. Raphael rarely showed softer feelings.

"Fine," he gave him. "But I approve of his involvement beforehand on a case by case basis."

"Agreed. Let's start with him first then. Eye, what info do you need to start thinking?"

The monster was unleashed it seemed. She looked up from her tablet where she had been making notes while the discussion happened.

"What's the fasted you've been able to go? If you've never formally clocked it then just a comparison to a car or something. What happens when you run into things, as in, can you body take the impact at that speed? Any regeneration or do the rest of your body's processes run at standard speed? Are there any side effects? Have you tried running on water and, if so, results? Do you have issues with your clothing burning up?"

"I designed him a suit," Magnus answered for the last question.

"No you didn't," Raphael said glaring at him but he brushed it away.

"Yes, I did. It's quite lovely too."

"No, a suit is a nice, formal outfit that normal people wear. You designed me a leotard."

"So you have fabric that works? If that's the case we can alter it here. Test our mics and cameras to see what we can integrate after seeing what holds up at speed. Can you bring me a sample?"

Somehow he and Izzy had managed to talk clothing even during a clandestine meeting of vigilantes. He smiled at her enthusiasm and nodded in affirmation.

*******Alec - Talking without embarrassing himself in front of Mag...Warlock*******

After Izzy had gotten all her high level questions answered she allowed them to proceed, with another assurance from Jace that she would get more time later he decided, he may as well get it over with. Plus, he was likely far less complicated than Warlock and Izzy had already tested him to her heart's content.

He had prepared and practiced for this. The last time anyone had found out it had been his siblings and before that it had been his father... He had bumbled through it painfully with Izzy and Jace. This time he was forewarned so he was prepared.

"I'll go next since I'm probably second least complicated. If you pull up the file I just pushed out you'll see a rundown of all the weapons I'm trained in as well as a list of all the different modifications Eye has made to my arrows. Besides the weapons I'm trained in multiple hand to hand combat styles with emphasis on points in the body that disable people. In the field, assume I have most of the ones highlighted in green on me. In civilian, I'll always have at least one dagger and a stele.

The second document you now have has a list of each marking with images, location on my body, and a brief description of what it does. They are always running in the background of my body without me doing anything, like your circulatory system, giving me a moderate advantage in normal circumstances. Most of them help me with fighting but, as you've seen, some of them are useful in other ways. I heal faster, can hear and see a bit better, and the one on my hand lets me throw a mask over them so I can walk around in daily life.

The stele can be used to supercharge the markings I have. Tracing over a mark amplifies the effect of that mark for a period of time. When I go into the field I standardly enhance the ones in yellow with the ones in orange being contingent on the purpose of the mission. If I use the stele the masking drops and they all get exposed. The downside is it takes a lot of energy so I tend to be out of commission for a day or so depending on how many I use, or in the case of healing, how bad it was.

Eye can provide you with deeper data on all the tests she's run if you're interested." Nobody was saying anything and a silence stretched out after he finished. Had he babbled, been unclear?

"So you're basically the swiss army knife of vigilantes." Raphael's dry comment broke the silence that had been making Alec uncomfortable.

Jace let out a bark of laughter. "That's a good way of putting it."

"I'd be interested in any bio-metric data you have," Cat spoke up, looking at Izzy.

"Sure! And based on what I know about you we should probably have a chat about marks vs modern medicine since needles can be a bit tricky to get through his skin with certain ones engaged and morphine, or really most drugs, can struggle as well."

"I wondered as much. Based on all this I'm shocked I was able to patch him up as much as I did."

He saw Izzy sober a bit and squeezed her hand.

"Thank you, by the way, Cat. For that night. When we lost all trace of him I...well...I'm thankful he had the people he needed at the time with him and that you got him back to us."

_Damn it._

When he had brought them into this over a year ago he had known they'd have rough patches but he hated himself for letting his little sister make that face. It steeled his resolve to make this team up work if it meant finishing off Valentine and letting her get back to her life.

"How many people have you killed?" Raphael asked casually.

"None," Jace answered for him. "The NYPD wouldn't work with him if he did. He's extremely careful. He's even dropped off some guys he's hurt a bit too much at the hospital before."

"Yeah, okay. That's a good party line but almost the first thing we heard when we got to this city was about your lethal vigilante who takes out problems with one arrow through the heart."

"Rumors can be helpful," Izzy offered. "We've not tried squashing them outside of making sure that legally he is absolutely clean."

"Yeah, and his brother being in charge of that cleaning means?"

"It means," Alec said, controlling his voice but leaving no room for questioning that he was done with this topic, "that the people I'm after, the person I'm after? They don't hesitate. And my family is involved in this so I will not let those people think for a second I would either. And if it comes down to it I wouldn't. So be thankful that I am very, very highly trained."

"And he didn't stake Camille through the heart the other night which even Cat would do so we have no reason not to trust him," Magnus offered. "Don't mind Raphael, he's not actually worried about you killing people, just a bit paranoid if one day you go dark you'll come after us."

"Any more questions for Shadowhunter? No, okay. Five minute break for refills," Jace said going for another few slices of pizza. Alec shot him a look he hoped conveyed his thanks.

*******Magnus - Distracted by the locations listed for some of the markings*******

Magnus spent the five minutes perusing the files.

_High left hip? Why do all these pictures include delicious glimpses of muscle? Hopefully none of these are for mind reading or I'm screwed. And a flexibility run is just not playing fair!_

If he thought his dreams had been nice before he couldn't begin to guess what this actual knowledge would do. Enhanced flexibility, how could he be expected to focus?

"Warlock?" Cat poked him discreetly under the table.

He snapped his head up. Everyone at the table was looking at him expectantly. Oh, he had missed that it was his turn. Raphael rolled his eyes. Izzy snickered into her hand. Jace looked at him, patiently waiting. Alexander just **looked** at him, his mark on his neck, 'deflect' he now knew, on full display since he was just wearing a loose gray t-shirt.

_What a terribly named mark. Deflect. More like attract my attention._

Cat poked him again, harder.

"Well," he lingered on that word trying to act like he had merely been thinking where to start instead of lusting over Alexander. He had to pull it together. No way that man would let him work with him if he thought Magnus would be constantly distracted by his presence. "Let's start with the portals.

As you've seen, I can take people and things through. It's a door but it does only work the way I open it. So if I open it in here to come visit you wouldn't be able to cross from your side. I don't know distance limit and I'm a bit afraid to push it blind since there could be dire consequences if we find the limit the wrong way. Best case, worst case scenario is we lose whatever object we test on. Worst case, worst case," he shrugs, they really didn't need to know that he grew up hearing stories about those with his abilities who had found out, "I stop myself from imagining. I can keep one open for about half a minute at peak and closing and opening takes about a tenth of a second when I really focus on it.

Carrying on to elements. I can ball up different elements which explode on contact. The size is correlated with how much energy and time I need, although I've gotten pretty fast with practice, with small bursts tending to handle individuals easily. The first night at the warehouse is on the larger side of what I have done but I was suddenly and shockingly surrounded by an armed gang so I didn't really use moderation.

And, for most people, I can throw a perception filter around myself. Think of it as me letting a bit of my powers seep out in an aura around myself causing it to be almost impossible to see anything that would help you identify me. So far I've found exactly one person who that hasn't worked on," he winked at Alexander and let himself feel the thrill at seeing the other man blush a bit. He couldn't help himself.

*******Alec - Paying attention because that's what he was supposed to do and not because he was deeply interested in the man speaking*******

"What about your eyes?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"They," he said gesturing to his siblings, "can't see them even with your thing down."

"Oh, you can, um, what exactly do you see?"

"They say brown but obviously your eyes are like cat's eyes, like strong, yellow-gold cat eyes."

His siblings knew this detail but why were the other three looking at him confused? Warlock's own team didn't see them? He never dropped that part?

"Ah, well, yeah, I guess I have a permanent mask on those, for obvious reasons."

Alec still didn't understand the reaction from Raphael and Cat but they didn't need to share everything and Alec had his answer. He bit his bottom lip a bit to keep from smiling. He was the only one who got to see them. He was the only one who could make eye contact with him without any sort of barrier. He felt a surge of possession wash over him and he ran his hand through his hair to refocus.

"Makes sense, I guess. Probably harder to keep it up subconsciously if you have to keep taking it down and putting it up."

Magnus nodded at him giving him a relieved smile that he felt himself returning so he covered his mouth with his hand and tapped on his tablet.

"Warlock, we have on record you using fire and air, based on the signatures I've been able to pick up. Water? Earth?" Thank heavens for Izzy and her impatience saving him.

"Water yes. Earth? I've never thought to try."

"I'd like to see, just in case, later when we can take measurements."

"Of course, my dear."

After that Alec found it harder to concentrate. Warlock kept looking at him and making odd faces. Not faces like Jace used to make at him at the dining table growing up but faces asking questions he couldn't read or telling him things he couldn't understand. It was very confusing.

He'd find himself staring at the man's lips after Warlock would wipe away a drop of pizza sauce or thinking about what laying atop him had felt like when the other man stood up and removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves to get more comfortable. Alec was more than a little relieved to not hear mind reading among the list of impressive abilities his new partner had.

He half listened to info he knew already. About Cat's medical background. About Jace and his work with Commissioner Garroway. About Izzy and her studies and her herculean efforts to turn his operation into the smooth machine it normally was and the basics of the tech she had for him and had hopes for for Warlock and now Raphael.

"So when you said you were still studying that clearly wasn't trust fund kid code for having no direction in life," Magnus stated.

He vaguely guessed what Izzy had probably said to lead to that comment, she did like to test people before letting them get close.

"No, actually, I have a PhD in engineering and I'm working on one in biology with the hopes to marry them for some useful bio-engineering insights. I took a lot of college courses in high school and my undergrad didn't have any core requirements so I was able to get through school a bit quicker. But everyone overlooks that when you're constantly in the papers for being at one party or another."

She shrugs but he knows she's a bit annoyed. She even does an occasional interview about the work she does for a subsidiary of Lightwood Holdings focused on wearable technology. Society be damned for thinking someone as impressive as his sister would have to choose one joy in life.

"And you," Magnus turned on his brother. "You said detective but it sounds like you're the linchpin for Commissioner Garroway's vigilante initiative and not just because of your relationship to a vigilante?"

"Well, don't spread it around but based on how successful Shadowhunter has been and with you in town now he's looking to set up a separate, static task-force and he's already had me vetted and approved to lead it."

"How is the super powered sibling the least impressive of the bunch?"

The laughter in Warlock's eyes distracted him for a second or two before he heard the words.

"Don't worry, darling. You're still my favorite."

Alec melted in his chair wishing he had a mark to stop himself from being able to blush.

"Let's take another break."

Jace was getting a very good Christmas present.


	9. Episode 9

*******Magnus - Right next to Alexander who was just a bit taller than him and who he would not touch*******

He would not touch the man next to him, the man leaning against the table just enough to make him the same height as Magnus. He would not trail his fingers along the 'deflect' mark. He would not lean against him to help remember the weight of the man's body on top of his as he came back to in the ballroom. He definitely wouldn't drag him into the hallway and kiss him first because so far it's all been Alexander taking the initiative even if there were...circumstances.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Alexander's hand was lightly touching his arm. Alexander's eyes were looking into his eyes with concern. Alexander's eyes that could see his eyes. His real eyes. His eyes that Alexander had complimented that night at the party, had said he loved them. Magnus thought he had just done a good job with his makeup but now, well, it wasn't like Alexander was a practiced flirt so now Magnus really had to rethink some things.

"Yeah, just, thinking. You?"

"Pretty much the same. You know, if it's Raphael I promise I won't let him get involved before you and I feel comfortable with his safety. I know he's important to you and even if he never sees any action it's better for everyone, especially him, if he has some training."

"I know, thank you darling."

The hand was still on his arm so he covered it with his own. He couldn't even be blamed for it. This was just reciprocating at this point.

"Good. And I really haven't killed anyone."

Alexander let his hand fall to the table but didn't move again when Magnus copied the move and his hand happened to overlap by a few fingers.

"I trust you. It's easy enough to believe the rumors about some anonymous vigilante but you, Alexander, I believe you. Plus with how amazing this place is I can believe that you would have other tricks to handle things."

"Heh, yeah. We've worked hard on making this place what it is."

"It's actually really nice! Not at all dark and damp like a cave should be. Clean but screams competence and cutting edge. Isabelle did a good job designing it. Oh, sorry. Eye."

"It's my lair, why would you assume she designed it?"

"Alec," Izzy said joining them as she heard her name, "before I figured out what was going on you were working out of a cave, a literal cave."

"This is still technically a cave," Alexander defended.

"But it's also a very nice lair," she countered.

The rest of the group made their way back and Raphael joined in. "Why do you call it a lair? If you want people to believe you don't kill people or you're not secretly the big bad at the end of it all that doesn't seem like a wise move."

"We told him if he didn't want us to call it a lair he had to stop brooding and glowering. I think he's grown fond of the name by now," Jace answered. "Alright, enough teasing, you all ready to get heavy?"

Alec actually started the conversation this time once everyone was ready.

"So the other night with that woman, Camille. She mentioned the name Valentine. I guess the first thing, do you know anything about The Circle?"

*******Alec - 16 months ago in his father's study*******

"Dad, is everything okay?" His father had summoned him with some urgency but Alec couldn't think why.

His father was hastily throwing reams of paper into the large fireplace in his study.

"Lock the door."

Alec complied quickly as his father stood up from where he had been focused and moved to a bookcase, opening a hidden door he hadn't known was there. His father said nothing but moved into the room and Alec followed, knowing it was expected. The hidden door closed behind him as his father twisted a lock in place.

"I won't beat around the bush. There's a threat to this family and your mother and I need you to step up to help resolve it. I was looking into it myself but I can't do this alone. These people, son, they're a powerful group with some sort of terrible plan for this city. I have to go underground as I've drawn their attention so you, as the eldest, I need you to protect your mother, your siblings."

"Dad, you know I'll do whatever is needed for this family but tell me what's going on. What people? What threat? If it's a threat to the city shouldn't the police be notified?"

"No, The Circle is much too connected, too powerful for that. It will take a great personal sacrifice and I hate to ask such of you but you're the only one I can trust with this. Sit here and give me your arm."

He readily held out his arm and watched as his father took a small box from a safe in the wall and removed a cup from within the velvet interior.

"I need you to be strong and brave now."

"You're worrying me. Just tell me what you're doing. We can get Jace, even Izzy, and mom. Together we can figure out anything."

"This is our family legacy and while I may wish Jace could take this burden it has to be you, our family's blood."

Alec was half expecting that this was a dream. His father was a rational being and nothing that had happened since he had entered the study seemed rational. But he braced himself anyway and when his father pulled out medical equipment he only watched warily.

"I'm going to draw some blood. Trust me."

"What?!"

"Alexander, I'll explain everything but we need to do this now. Your family is vulnerable and you have the chance to protect them. Are you really going to risk them just because you want to question me? I could go get Izzy, it should work with her the same as with you, if you aren't willing."

That settled it for Alec. There was no mistaking that as the threat it was coming from his father. He didn't know what was going on, what danger his father was talking about, or what was about to happen to him but if his family really was in danger and he could help he would, no matter the details. And if he could take a burden instead of any of his loved ones, he'd never let Izzy take it instead. He stopped arguing as his father cleaned the area around a vein and slid a needle in. He watched in silence as his blood dripped into the odd cup from the safe until it apparently had enough and his father stopped the flow and told him to apply pressure to his arm.

A second item was removed from the box, a long pen-like stick, and his father moved the stick across some intricate markings on the cup. Alec was almost certain this was a dream when the cup glowed and his blood became a white-golden liquid. Either it was a dream or his dad had the holy grail or something.

"Drink."

"My own blood?"

"Does that look like your blood?"

It...didn't. Which, if this was a dream then he'd get to the end faster if he just complied, right? And if it wasn't, well, he really couldn't let his father follow through on the veiled threat to bring in his sister instead.

"Fine," he said, taking the cup and drinking.

For one brief moment it felt like pure light was filling him up from the inside out and then it was replaced with crippling pain. He couldn't see, the pain in his head was so strong. His limbs lost any connection and he fell forward out of the chair and collapsed onto the ground. If he yelled out he couldn't hear it through the fire that rushed through him as if it was drying up the blood in his veins. His skin felt like it was bubbling from the inside out with slashing waves rolling across different places. He curled into himself mentally as the pressure of the anguish pushed in against his mind until, just as quickly as it began it ebbed and everything relaxed and, gasping like he just discovered his lungs for the first time, he slipped into darkness.

When he woke up he found himself alone in the hidden room, covered in black tattoos, with an old, yellowing journal, a thumb drive, and the odd box with its contents next to him. By the time he looked through the book and figured out how to use the stick, the stele as the journal called it, to mask the markings he found his family already beginning to mourn. His father's plane, in it's rush to leave the city, had crashed leaving Alec alone in this mystery.

*******Alec - Giving them the cliff notes of that confusing backstory to get to the important part*******

"Eye has some guesses as to what happened to me but what's really important is what was on the flashdrive. It was password protected which took us a bit but once I got into the files I found everything my father knew about The Circle."

"How'd he come across the info in the first place?" Cat asked.

"I'm not really sure on those details, but since there is mention of a few family friends in the file I wouldn't be surprised if he just stumbled across it originally and then looked into it further once he realized the threat. Once I saw what was there I immediately realized how bad it could be so safe to say he did as well.

From what we can tell the leader, Valentine Morgenstern, has been recruiting influential and powerful people to his side. He's some sort of genius and we can't find anything about him as a person outside of the organization so we aren't even sure if he's a real person, an alias, or even a red herring. What we do know is that his group is working towards some big plan to, as they put it, fix the city."

"I take it their definition of fixing isn't great?" Raphael snarked.

"Not at all. At first I wasn't sure but we've been able to tie them to an increase in weapons trafficking, gang violence, new drug creation, and the transportation of controlled chemicals and tech into the city."

Cat broke in again, "So the new drug you're credited with taking down?"

"Yeah, Yin Fen," he didn't look at his sister, it would have been impossible to hide that that had been more about resolving a personal vendetta than saving the city if he had seen a reaction from her. "It took some effort but we're pretty confident we've made trafficking in it too dangerous in the city."

"We had a similar issue with it in London," Magnus supplied. "We could never pin it on anyone but we think Camille was at least involved with facilitating it getting into the wrong hands. I was actually looking for it the first night we met. With here being in the city I'd suggest we watch for a resurgence."

This did make him look at Izzy. She looked focused but her noticed he grow a little pale. He'd talk with her after this.

"Good to know," Jace said. "I'll talk with Garroway, see if he wants to take any action as well."

Magnus nodded and continued, "On the surface, Camille lives off of powerful men that she dates but we suspect that she's tied to drugs. Even if she isn't directly involved she has a history of using her connections to gain blackmail and information which would let her open the right doors for others looking to trade. She's connected but has very few friends. Makes sense with what we know of her powers."

"Sounds like a perfect ally for Valentine then," Alec picked up. "We can assume that she's working towards his goal even if her reason for doing so is unclear. Probably in our best interest to get tabs on her and her current paramours to see if we can use one. Until then, we really have two goals. Find out more members of The Circle, the file only gave us a few leads and we've followed up on all of them, and find out what they are up to, all my father could dig up were general plans for undermining the city's ability to respond to whatever they have planned. Turn the public against groups. Tie up the cops with drugs and petty gangs. Isolate entire neighborhoods. We've done what we can publically, setting up funds for Yin Fen addiction recovery and doing a gun buyback program, but we don't want to tip off anyone and make them look too hard at myself or our family."

"So what's your next step?" Cat again. He was quickly growing to like the woman's straightforward approach.

"Well, what was in the files has been exhausted but we did, really by sheer luck, stumble across a fresh lead. The man the other night in the park, his name is Hodge. He used to work for us, actually, as head of security for both the business and our family, even taught us self defense growing up. We're almost positive he's the one who took out my father and his involvement now with The Circle pretty much confirms that. It's a risk, going after him, because he could identify me, but he could do that with or without us actively coming at him so we've decided it's worth it."

"What do you need from us, then?" Warlock asked biting his lower lip in thought making the color stronger with the blood that moved around the pressure.

And wasn't that just a distracting reminder. Alec would have to have a talk with Warlock, air some stuff out, later.

"Camille is the first break we've had since Hodge. We'd love to explore that lead with you, to our mutual benefit," Izzy slipped in. "Like Shadowhunter mentioned, if she's tied to Valentine and if she likes to manipulate useful people then it's possible her associates overlap with The Circle."

"We'll help however we can, of course," Magnus replied. "I can give you all the gory details of our relationship…"

"Or they can just read what I have gathered on her," Raphael cut Magnus off and slid a thumb drive down the table. "Mine's at least guaranteed to be PG-13. After everything went down I collected as much as I could and filed it away in case she ever became a problem again."

"You have a thumb drive on my ex?"

"On your psycho-ex? Yeah. What? They said to bring our information and I didn't figure you had anything organized."

"We'll look at this first and follow up with more questions, does that work?" Jace looked around again. Everyone nodded "It's getting pretty late, what do we say we break here and touch base tomorrow after we've had time to comb through each other's info?

Cool."

*******Magnus - Emotionally too tied to behave fully*******

He opened portals for Cat and Raphael to their own homes but stayed back himself helping Team Shadowhunter clean up a bit. Magnus wasn't blind, he saw the wink Isabelle gave him as she pushed Jace to wrap up and leave with her. Soon he was left with just Alec who had been running a stele over the same arrow shaft for a few minutes. So maybe the desire to talk was mutual.

"So," he started, turning to the other man but not getting closer yet. "You can see my eyes."

"Yeah, guess so," came the reply. Alexander wasn't looking at him and was affecting a light tone but Magnus could see the blush already starting on his pale skin. How the man managed to be a scary vigilante was beyond him.

Magnus took a deep breath. If he didn't ask the question he'd ruminate on it until he was so distracted he was useless and if he was useless then he could lose his chance to work with the beautiful man which absolutely couldn't happen. But tonight had been a bit tiring and he already felt vulnerable talking about Camille so he had to force himself forward.

"Do they bother you?"

"What?" That had the other man looking up, his eyes focused on Magnus in confusion.

"Do they freak you out? Scare you because they're so different or something? I could see that maybe they'd be a bit distracting since they're a bit alien to what people expect." They had bothered everyone before he managed to control his powers enough to handle it. It was hard enough to get placed with a foster family, it was even harder when most not so secretly thought he was demon spawn.

He held his breath as Alec turned fully to him, putting his tools on a table, and crossing his arms. Magnus knew he should be grateful that he was seriously thinking about the question instead of giving him a knee jerk platitude but did he really need to take quite so long?

"Well, when I first saw them I was shocked, sure, but that was a bit circumstantial. You had just made quite the big entrance and I wasn't sure what type of complication you were and if I'd have to figure out how to take care of you on the fly or not. But, I mean, in our line of work I'd be a hypocrite if I minded you having a few differences."

Magnus couldn't help it, his heart panged a little bit with hope. He hadn't realized there was an exact right answer to his question but Alexander was full of surprises. He hadn't blown it off nor had he made a big deal out of it. It was his turn to blush and break eye contact.

"That's fair. Good. I'd hate to have scared you," he managed with a self deprecating smile.

He looked back up and the taller man had moved over to stand in front of him because, yeah, one of those marks was for doing that silently. A finger was placed under his chin to tip his head up to make full eye contact. The skin under the finger warmed and added to the blush, a trill of electricity races down his neck through his spine making it impossible for him to move or look away.

"Nothing about you scares me, Magnus. I need you to believe that if we're going to work together. And if there's anything about me that worries you let me know so we can work through it. If we're doing this trust thing I want to do it right."

"Haah, well, okay then."

He really should drop it. This had gone very well. Much better than expected. It had been clarified and there were many, many good reasons why dropping it was the best idea for their working relationship.

"So, the other night, at your sister's birthday party? When you said you liked them? Was it…?" Yeah, Magnus had never been very good at impulse control.

He was gratified to see the pupils wide in those hazel eyes. His probably mirrored them as the finger under his chin moved along his jaw until a strong, calloused hand cupped his cheek. He sent a prayer up to any god listening that this was not the terrible idea it could be as he let himself press into the contact and let his eyelids droop as Alexander's thumb slowly caressed up across to the corner of his eye.

"I may have undersold things back then," Alec whispered, voice deeper than he'd heard it so far. "They're beautiful. You're beautiful. I've...you're the most beautiful man I've ever seen but I…"

Magnus didn't wait to find out where that was going. It was either going to end up here anyway or somewhere Magnus didn't want to go right now. So he stood on his toes and silenced the words. Those soft, pillowy lips met his in what was their most chaste kiss yet. But it was perfect.

Maybe any kiss with Alexander would be perfect. His logical brain would say it was harder to prove the absence of something than the existence of it. Right now he could see the benefit of doing extensive research on the subject. But the other man broke contact with a sigh before he could follow up on that thought.

"Magnus, we need to talk about this."

"Sure, darling. But not tonight, okay? I'm a bit too tired for anything more tonight."

"Okay."

That was good enough for him for now. He backed up into a portal, the last thing he saw was the soft look on Alec's face as he watched him leave.


	10. Episode 10

*******Alec - Sitting a his desk intending to run through paperwork while other things run through his mind*******

He tapped his pen against his desk and ruminated. For the first time in a long time Alec needed to make a decision he was torn on. It had been since Izzy had found out. And just like when Izzy had found out, and Jace before her, he had to consider everything in the context of the other person involved. He got the feeling that, just like his siblings, Magnus would make things complicated, likely either way he decided.

The main problem was, he wasn't actually sure which was the right choice. In the past he had thought keeping his siblings in the dark was the right choice but now, even though it put them in danger, he was convinced they were on the right path. But he had had to learn he was wrong and being wrong could be dangerous, especially with another vigilante. Rarely is a decision this big restricted to impacting just one person, and the choice to involve someone was definitely a two person choice.

His siblings had made their arguments and at the end of the day Alec couldn't make the choice to keep them from acting just because he thought it was best. So he let them help. It gnawed at his conscious constantly that he had let them find out in the first place but he didn't regret bringing them in once they had. They made each other stronger. And he could protect them best if they were on the same page.

So he and Magnus needed to have a conversation to get on the same page but it was probably best that it hadn't happened last night. He needed to figure out what he even was going to say. If he was willing to lie to himself it would be easy. He would just say they needed to keep it professional, that they should quash the personal connection and focus on getting things done. Neither of them would probably deny that the things humming between them was a distraction and distractions were dangerous.

But, Alec had stopped lying to himself years ago and he didn't feel like starting again. Lying to yourself put a film over the truth. It converted all a person's effort and energy into maintaining the film as the world tried to scrape it off. He was lucky to have strong people around him to help once he had realized things. Izzy and Jace, sure. But also the few people outside of his family that he trusted.

He sighed, recalling all the people he was personally fighting for. Thinking of the whole city counting on him could be overwhelmingly exhausting but thinking of specific faces grounded him when he felt like spiraling. One of those people knocked on his door before entering his office, forcing him to focus on the present.

Every now and then he actually had to go into the office. If he didn't his mother would start in on him even if he really didn't do anything. In any other world he would have already buckled down and thrown himself into the role he had been given, earning it in the eyes of his employees. As it stood, he mostly delegated.

With everything that had happened recently he had been neglecting things and when he had woken up this morning with a text from his direct report, Lydia, he knew he needed to put in some effort in that part of his life. A few hours later he had met with her and come away with decisions to make, more on top of the pile he had from his secret life. Now she was back, checking in on him and those decisions.

"Hey, Alec. I don't mean to bug but we really do need to fill Aldertree's position so we need to get the finalists in to meet with you ASAP."

Aldertree used to be the head of the development team for Lightwood Pharmaceutical, which he was supposed to be overseeing, proving himself as the heir. The man had doubled profits over the course of four years but had also been the architect of what eventually became Yin Fen. After he had been, handled, a few months ago things had begun to stall as current projects ended and new projects hung in limbo, waiting on direction.

"Have you met with them both?"

"Yes, of course."

He really was spoiled to have someone like Lydia around. She was the leader the business actually needed, she just lacked the power to get it. She told him she was happy with the situation, to gain the experience and connections, but he knew what she called delegation was really him making her do two jobs.

"Any reason we should consider this external applicant over our internal candidate?"

"Not that I can see but they did come in through referral and they are qualified so…"

"One of my mother's friends?"

"Yep."

"The internal candidate, they've never had management responsibilities before. Are we concerned there?"

"I'm not but that's really up to you, Alec."

To most Lydia had a fantastic poker face, she struck the exact right business neutral tone. To Alec, who felt they had many similarities in their approach to things, he could now read her small way of expressing her true thoughts. He had to in order to find the right balance with her as she hadn't wanted to ever present her actions as assuming Alec would just bow to her opinion, even if he told her he likely would. Lydia didn't actually mind cronyism or nepotism as long as the person could do the job, she would rather work with the reality of the world than waste her life wishing things were different.

He took another minute and scanned the files on each again. The external candidate had experience and a fine resume. The internal candidate was young but the file with filled with references Lydia had obviously solicited in private from other employees, including one from Izzy who had apparently worked on a collaboration with the candidate. Lydia had also included financial details on projects for the candidate and the candidate's professional development plan with a note that they were ahead on it. Sure, there were details for the other person but Lydia's tell was her enthusiasm and passion which bled through in her actions.

"Can we get the internal candidate in with me today, before I leave? I don't have anything else on my calendar so whenever works."

"Can do! And the other one?"

"I'll let you know afterwards if I'll be needing anything else set up."

She smiled at him and rushed out to get things set up herself. The only other priority she had left him with was green lighting projects which he'd do with her and the likely promotee and then update his mother on. Not that his mother really cared for the details, he just needed to reassure her that yes, the business was still going in the right direction and no, he wasn't causing issues she'd have to handle. He'd let her down with the Aldertree situation but that was before he and Lydia had come to their tacit understanding.

*******Magnus - Distracted at work on multiple fronts*******

He was trying to pick shots of some new items for the website which would be easier if he could stop scrolling through Izzy's Instagram account looking for the rare shot of her with her brother. Because, of course, Alexander didn't have social media. Why would he make it easy for Magnus to fantasize? As a visual creature pictures were helpful. Well, as a tactile creature having the man in front of him was the best but pictures were second best. Too bad he couldn't take the tablet with the tattoos out of the lab.

His phone buzzed, breaking him out of his daydream. A group text, wonderful.

**Raphael (10:14 AM): **Any reason we aren't telling them all of your abilities?

So they had caught that. Welp, at least they could get on the same page. He really had intended to go into that meeting and been fully open but between knowing he'd have to talk about Camille and staring at Alexander for hours warring with himself and what he should do versus what he wanted to do with the man he had fallen back onto some comfortable defensive mechanisms.

**Cat (10:17 AM): **Are we to assume you only told them about the ones they were already aware of?

It's not like he was really holding much back. At least based on what his friends knew. When it came to 'powers' he had really only left out the whole tracking part he used to get to that warehouse that they were aware of.

**Magnus (10:18 AM): **Just the one. Don't worry about it.

**Raphael (10:19 AM): **So we don't really trust them?

**Magnus (10:21 AM): **No, we do. We're just being smart about it.

**Raphael (10:22 AM): **Alright, just give us a head's up next time. We'll follow your lead.

**Cat (10:27 AM): **You should reconsider though, while it's still early. That tracking could be useful in their efforts to track down that one guy. And if something bad happens and they find out that you withheld it could pose a problem.

Wasn't that just the story of his life. He cherry picked custom details with literally every person he met.

**Magnus (10:30 AM):** You're likely right. Let me think on it.

Sure, they both knew he didn't talk about how he got his powers or about his biological family, and he only lightly shared his time before he met them, but they knew just because he didn't tell them everything didn't mean he didn't trust or value them. For now they'd go along assuming that their involvement was limited to both teams' shared interest in Camille. Anything beyond that, Magnus would need to think deeply about.

Which would be very hard if he actually got involved as Magnus with Alexander on top of Warlock with Shadowhunter. It was easy to rush headfirst into things knowing that holding back would just cause other, less enjoyable complications. It was much harder to remind himself that Magnus as a person had a lot of complications outside of being a secret vigilante.

Then he got a message forwarded through his burner number to further distract him.

**Shadowhunter (11:22 AM):** Hey, It's Eye. How good are you at code breaking?

**Warlock (11:24 AM):** What? Like with lemon juice?

**Shadowhunter (11:25 AM):** Hm, no. Not at all. Just realized that we never exchanged actual normal phone numbers and wanted to send it to you through this line but it would have to be through a multi-layer code for obvious reasons.

**Warlock (11:26 AM):** Please don't give me homework. Can't you just like, do your stuff and find it online or something?

**Shadowhunter (11:29 AM):** You'd be okay with that?

**Warlock (11:30 AM):** Yeah, why not?

**Shadowhunter (11:32 AM):** Oh, just it felt pretty invasive and I didn't want to cross a line. But yeah, that would be great since I'm at work so I can't come to you right now and you definitely can't poof to me.

**Warlock (11:33 AM):** It's fine. I'm going to let you poke me for science and a little birdie told me you were going to work on my digital trail anyway. I give you permission to also do this very small thing for convenience sake.

**Shadowhunter (11:34 AM):** Alright, one minute.

His phone lit up through the normal messenger he had.

**Unknown (11:36 AM):** Hi! It's Izzy.

**Magnus (11:37 AM): **That was two minutes. I'm very disappointed.

**Shadowhunter (11:38 AM):** Do you mind if I get a smidge more invasive and wipe this?

**Isabelle (11:39 AM):** I blame the network. I swear I sent the text in under a minute. ;)

**Warlock (11:39 AM): **Go ahead.

**Magnus (11:41 AM):** I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, dear.

He backed out of the chat and the other chain had already disappeared. Well, at least he knew he'd be safer online going forward.

**Magnus (11:42 AM):** To what do I owe the honor of this effort?

**Isabelle (11:44 AM):** Just wanted to check if you could hang out tonight, at our place. I have plans for you ( •̀ᴗ•́ )و ̑̑

**Isabelle (11:45 AM):** Alec will be there too, of course, if you need incentive.

**Magnus (11:46 AM):** I don't need to be bribed to spend time in your company, my dear. But noted with appreciation. Same time?

**Isabelle (11:48 AM):** Yeah, if that works for you. Alec should be there a bit before then so you shouldn't be lonely if I'm not there when you arrive.

So he'd have supervision in their lair. Makes sense that they wouldn't just give him free reign.

**Magnus (11:50 AM):** Arranging a babysitter for me? Well, if I have to have oversight I guess I could do a lot worse than a hot man.

**Isabelle (11:54 AM):** Magnus, we don't have anything keeping you out of there. You could bamf over there right now and find it empty, Alec's at work and he's the only one who hangs out there outside of necessity. I wouldn't even know how to begin to design something that could work as a lock for you and doubt I could even after we hang out some more. I merely mentioned that information for your benefit, in case you get done with work a little early.

Great. Now he felt even worse about the omissions he was making.

**Magnus (12:01 PM):** Okay then. Thank you for letting me know. And sorry, you've all been so nice, I didn't mean to insult.

**Isabelle (12:02 PM):** It's fine. Not like we were open in the beginning. Just wanted to make sure I was clear and not letting misunderstandings hang around. Hard enough to trust with all this stuff without easy to handle problems going unresolved.

**Isabelle (12:03 PM):** Any chance you'd back me up if I tell Raphael I got his number from you?

**Magnus (12:04 PM):** Go right ahead.

**Isabelle (12:06 PM):** Awesome, thanks.

**Isabelle (12:07 PM):** Uggg, I have to get back to work. I just heard a little explosion from the other room. Should probably go make sure my team didn't kill someone.

**Magnus (12:10 PM):** See you tonight!

*******Alec - Taking the bare minimum time required to not let his suit get wrinkled while changing*******

The interview had gone exactly how he expected. The woman, named Helen Blackthorn was competent, personable, and obviously a quality choice. And she had ideas. He was confident she'd rise to the new role. He had sent off a quick email to his mother informing her of the decision and then HR to get all the official pieces taken care of, including the justification that Lydia had basically packaged for him.

He had called Lydia in at the end to let them both know of the decision at once and, after congratulating her, Lydia had set up a long meeting for tomorrow to go over the new project proposals with both of them. It meant coming into the office for two days in a row but it would show his mother immediate progress which would build her confidence in the direction and would likely mean she wouldn't check in before their next scheduled touch point, plenty of time for Helen to show that she was the right choice.

After that he had rushed home and headed to his real priority, changing in the lair quickly so he could release some tension. He'd managed to get through his standard weight routine and was working on a few miles when he felt a hum pulse through a few marks. Turning, he noticed he was no longer alone as Warlock had popped in. Izzy had mentioned he would be coming for those promised tests.

He looked at his phone, still time before the earliest she'd likely arrive. Stopping the treadmill he sighed and walked over.

"We need to talk."

"Why are your marks covered?"

"What? Oh, yeah, haven't needed them since I got back from work. I normally don't have them out."

"Shame."

"Sure. Back on topic…"

"Alexander, we do need to talk but my mind is having a hard time organizing all of this new information so I'm afraid I'd be useless in any discussion like that right now and would end up making an ill informed decision."

He was right there with the other man. It was kind of a relief, having an excuse to put it off while still being able to feel like he was being responsible because he brought it up.

"Fine. But it needs to happen before we go out together. In the field. Out in the field together. Or the other if the conversation goes that way but only if we have that talk, before the field, and fighting."

"Agreed, darling."

"But we still need to have **a** conversation. Figure out a training plan and what to actually put in that plan."

"That I am ready for! I think it would be best to start with me visually confirming that the location information your team provided on your marks is accurate. You know, what you consider a hip I could consider the low waist and all and I'd hate to be slow to help just because I didn't do my due diligence."

"Be serious."

He couldn't laugh, he just couldn't. He couldn't condone not taking this seriously. But he did laugh because the man was really adorable when he flirted.

"Fine, but I think we'd both have enjoyed it."

He had to agree, just, not out loud. One of them had to be serious or the city would fall around them while innuendos were still being thrown back and forth.

"I'm sure Izzy is going to steal you once she gets here so I was hoping to see your stuff close up while I'm not the target of it or, you know, dying."

"My **stuff**, hmm?" Alec raised his eyebrow. "Oh, fine. Well, you've seen fire and air," Magnus said, populating one in each hand.

Alec reached out towards both, noting the force the small ball of air managed to pack and the small pull into the fire orb as it probably fed itself oxygen to keep the flame sustained. Izzy would learn a lot more but it was already a start.

"Careful."

"Super healing."

"Oh sure, have at it. Stick your hand into fire then."

"You mentioned never having tried earth."

"Yeah, I tried when I got home last night and no luck. I guess it's just too complex of a concept."

"You create the equivalent of personal, temporary wormholes through space and you think a clod of dirt is complex?"

"I've never thought of them as wormholes. Look at you not just being the beauty of the group."

"I didn't come up with it. I just listened to Izzy. I'm sure she'd tell me why dirt is more complicated than a hole in space."

"Regardless, earth is out."

"Looks like we've finally found something you can't do," he found himself teasing and leaning against the wall of his personal gym. Was it flirting? Was this called, what was it the Jace had told him about, negging? That wasn't good though if he was remembering correctly. Magnus didn't seem offended though so maybe negging worked?

"Honestly, I'm okay with that. It seems wholly ineffectual. Maybe good for putting out a small fire if you don't have flour nearby."

"You have water for that, I thought."

Test number one on his list quickly became how far away he needed to stand in order to have enough time to identify an incoming orb and dodge it because he was definitely too close to dodge the water orb that got lobbed at his face. He could feel it dripping from his hair down his neck into his shirt.

"Oh, you're so right. That's much more effective."


	11. Episode 11

*******Magnus - Should not poke the bear if the bear is actually just a very attractive, fit man*******

Okay, so maybe he hadn't thought this through past the equivalent of a superpower water balloon and now he was seeing the error of that. Water dripped from the man, catching on his dark eye lashes, trailing slowly down the tendons of his neck, and dampening the shirt he was in the process of removing to use as a rag. Magnus couldn't do anything but watch as muscles rolled and flexed with the simple action of wiping away the water before the shirt was thrown off to the side into a bin for laundry against the wall of the exercise area. Then he couldn't do anything but valiantly hold back a slight whimper as one strong hand pushed through the wet hair to get the damp ends off of the brow they had adhered to.

"Real mature," Alec said with a rumbly laugh.

At least he wasn't mad or anything.

"Laugh all you want, Alexander, but the way I see it, I'm one water orb away from having you naked." He followed the statement up with a pointed look at the sweatpants the other man wore and raised one eyebrow with a smirk.

That caused a full blush to overtake the other man and it spread along the same path as the water from his neck down to disappear into the hair that coated his firm pecs.

"Everyone decent? I'm coming in!" yelled a female voice followed by staccato tapping.

Izzy, dressed in a fitted but modest blue dress, strode in on towering heels.

"Why hello there, Isabelle. How was work today? Any more explosions happen?"

"It was good. And actually, it was a very productive explosion. I'm feeling really good about that project. I'm going to change, I'll be right back."

"Oh, whups. I forgot the code names again."

"Eh, I won't tell Jace," Alec said with a wink.

"How is an explosion good?"

"Don't ask me," Alec shrugged. "I don't question the methods of masters. She says, 'put this on' and I put the thing on and very rarely regret it."

"Wow, you sure know how to make a man feel safe, Alexander."

"Just being the warning label for my sister. Proceed with caution. Read instructions."

"Don't get near water?"

"I think one of her employees is solely dedicated to making everything they come up with waterproof actually."

"So your family business…" he intentionally faded, leaving it open for the other man to say whatever he wanted. He knew a bit but not how Alexander fit into it but he was just so darn curious about the very attractive not at all publicly front and center presumed heir.

"Ummm, basically a bunch of companies we've acquired or funded under our parent brand umbrella. We have an incubator for startups as well as a group dedicated to more traditional investing. Our mother mostly oversees those. I'm technically overseeing our pharma business and a few other things but I'm mostly just there to give the Lightwood seal of approval to the decisions my VPs makes. Izzy, on the other hand, petitioned our mother to let her have control over a few different startups and our more traditional tech branch, basically anything she could see working together, and has focused them as one unit working towards the future of wearable and biological technology. We've done some collaborations when she's wanted to incorporate the biomedical side. It's really impressive. She took a bunch of one off ideas different people have failed to scale and networked them."

"It sounds like you're really proud of her."

"Of course I am. She's juggling education, all that work, and getting this operation in shape. She has such a clear vision for the good technology can do. Anyone else I'd be worried about them creating cyborgs or some sci-fi villain with the prosthesis and implants her team has come up with but in her hands even our mom couldn't corrupt things."

"Don't let him fool you, Warlock. He's doing good work as well," Izzy said, rejoining them in sensible shoes and athletic wear.

"The teams are doing good work. I just throw my name at the bottom of the documents."

"He's being modest. You hear about the commitment we made with Doctors Without Borders a few years ago? Him. His requirement for taking on the pharma side."

"That was before the whole, 'Shadowhunter' thing though," Alec said, brushing it off. "Back before dad died. I was originally working with our foundation, managing the nonprofit side. Corporate responsibility is all the rage these days and that program has bought us a lot of goodwill. I tried doing both jobs for a little but when the whole scandal with Aldertree and Yin Fen happened I handed it off to my second over there who's done a great job. She split the foundation into local and global so that different parts of the company could be better leveraged for different causes. She still technically reports to me but she asks for even less oversight than Lydia. Really, I'm only involved because I think mom has pretty much forgotten it even exists."

"It sounds like you have a lot of good people working for you, Alexander."

"Definitely the best. They make me pretty much unnecessary but I'm happy to lend the weight of my last name to support them whenever they ask so it works for us so far" Alec said looking fond with the thought of the people he was talking about.

It was sweet how he so easily praised others. He knew Alexander loved his sister but hearing him heap praise on anyone who had his respect was warming. It made Magnus want to be one of those people, to have Alexander say nice, warm things about him.

"Do either of them know about your, hobbies?"

Alexander sighed before answering. "Neither of them have ever mentioned it but they're both smart. Smart enough to know mentioning it would make things difficult for everyone."

"Warlock," Izzy said when whatever she had been prepping off to the side was good to go, "if you're ready I can start hooking you up to things that aren't my brother. Shadowhunter, you're not needed for this. Go be quiet over there and let me get to work."

*******Izzy - With two of seventeen machines already broken and a big smile on her face*******

"I'm sorry about that, Isabelle."

"Don't worry about it at all. Breaking my equipment just means I get new toys! Alec!" she yelled over her shoulder. "Put a shirt on or be less distracting. His EKG keeps spiking every time you come into view."

She shook her head with fond exasperation. If watching her brother's reaction before had been entertaining it was equally pleasing to see those jumps and spikes reciprocated. Sure, she wished it was under less complicated circumstances but maybe it took a literal superhuman to break through her brother's super walls.

"Fine! I'll just go practice my aim, over here, in the range, again, with a wall between us. Heaven forbid my training interrupts your playtime," her brother snarked lightly, grabbing his bow and basic arrows and heading to the most hidden part of the alcove out of sight. The thwack and thunk of the release and hit of the arrow still audible but at least he wasn't shirtless and flexing in line of sight.

"Thank you! I love you!"

"Love you too!"

"Sorry about that."

"I wish you'd have let him stay, dear. Don't you need readings of me in my natural element?"

"Your natural element is checking out my brother?"

"Phrased like that it sounds a bit stalkerish. How about needing to have measures of what we'll probably do in the field? What if he needs to kiss me again for some reason? Wouldn't it be best to thoroughly get baselines for that, so you know if it's working or something?"

"Well, I do have them for him after that ballroom moment." She had obviously deleted the video feed from the goggles but had kept the other data because it really would be useful as a comparison point.

"What? Really?"

"His suit has basic measures like that built in to track vitals. I'll be wanting to set you up as well going forward."

"Can I have a screenshot of those measures?"

"No, if you want to see my brother's reactions you'll have to get them the old fashioned way."

"Stab him with something and watch how he reacts?" Warlock joked picking up one of her needles from the table. "I do need to test out the practical applications of that flexibility mark," the man in front of her continued with a wink.

She shuddered and put up a very strong mental block.

"Ew, behave. He's still my brother. Objectify him all you want but don't go putting things like that in my mind please."

"Fine, I wouldn't want to lose my ally."

"Speaking of. Have you two talked?"

"Not meaningfully."

It was very hard, having Alec as a brother. Not because of the whole 'vigilante' thing. Because of the whole 'refusing to take what he wanted' thing. She had assumed he'd be an adult about it and have a conversation with the man he obviously wanted before his pining became a distraction. She couldn't let it go on much longer without having to force something more overtly. Not just because she loved him and wanted him to be happy and this was the first time he'd ever shown interest in someone. He literally couldn't afford to be of two minds on things in the field which meant putting in the time to figure out how exactly he was going to make it work so nobody got hurt.

And if he dared not to try to make it work she'd kill him herself.

"No useful progress last night? And here I went and cleared out the lair for you to be alone with him, twice."

"Well, I wouldn't say that but we do now really need a conversation."

"Did he kiss you again?' He may be stalling at anything else but Alec had gone from zero to make out with no preamble and it gave her hope that he could challenge Jace or herself for boldness, if he could just stop thinking about it.

"I actually kissed him this time."

"Guys, just because you can't see me doesn't mean I can't hear your conversation," Alec's voice carried to them.

"Don't listen to other people's conversations if you don't want to hear things," Izzy yelled back.

"Super hearing," came the reply.

"We'll have to figure out a code," Magnus joked.

She tapped thoughtfully on the table. "What languages do you know?"

"Umm," Magnus hesitated in answering that and broke eye contact.

Jace would say his body language was downright shifty. Which was odd on top of some of the other data points she'd gathered so far. Because she **could **trust his answer as the full truth and interpret his hesitation as wondering about dialects or the definition of fluent or something but her senses were flaring to dig. Not that it would get her anywhere if he didn't trust her. If anything, it could cause him to retreat.

"One really."

"Just one?"

"Well, I did take high school French but it be a bit desperate and disrespectful to such a beautiful tongue to call that knowing a language."

Fine. She'd let him grow close to them and would look at all the information he was giving her through the tests and wait for the right time to press. And if it caused harm to those she cared about then she'd use what she was learning about him to destroy him. A safeguard was probably called for, she just wouldn't tell Alec. Maybe Jace.

"So we can't just talk behind his back in another language. Oh well. We'll think of something. Or just ignore him. Not our fault his powers make him so annoying."

"What test is next?"

"Just one more before we start looking at your powers. Spit in this tube please."

*******Jace - Trying to understand why he was being assigned to babysitting duty*******

"Now don't pull that face on me. This isn't normal babysitting duty."

He was standing in front of Commissioner Garroway's large desk, the door to the office closed. Most people had left the building for the day when he had been called in from his temporary office down the hall. As the head of the soon to be permanent vigilante task force Luke wanted to keep him close. He loved the vote of confidence, not so much the new assignment.

"You want me and my contacts to keep watch over some mother daughter duo?"

"Yes. Look, I know this doesn't seem normal but my gut is just telling me they need friendly eyes on them."

"Are they being threatened or something?"

"Not officially. Look, this isn't technically a case. It's more of an off the books precaution in the form of a personal favor."

"So you know them?"

"Yeah, they're family friends. Jocelyn, the mother, and I have known each other for most of our lives and something has her spooked but she won't talk about it. If I push she may run and then I'll be helpless to help them."

"Why me and any resources I can get to assist though? Why not just put a plainclothes cop out front?"

"You know how sometimes we get anonymous tips for your cases and we definitely, legally don't know where they come from but I trust you and things work out?" the man asked pointedly, subtext clear.

They had only really talked about things openly once, in the early days when Jace had been tasked with tracking down Shadowhunter and arresting him. The man had been a part of his development since he graduated from the academy and, with Alec's consent, Jace had taken the gamble to trust him and had brought the three of them together to hammer out the rules of the relationship. After that one off the record conversation they functioned on a need to know basis. He'd tell Luke the bare minimum needed to get the job done and Luke would give him far more free reign than anybody else with the understanding that everything was handled cleanly. Jace could trust the man's gut.

"Okay, I'll get things organized. I take it you want it going tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Anything else you can tell me?"

"I can't go into details but if I'm right and there is something then this could get messy. A certain organization may get involved."

"Well why didn't you just lead with that?"

If it was The Circle then not only would they be willing to do this but he wouldn't be able to keep Alec away. Any lead and his brother would drop anything and everything even if it meant long, boring hours of nothing and an eventual dead end.

"It's been a long day, Jace. Even I'm allowed to forget what buttons to push."

"Fair enough. I'll keep you updated."

Jace left the office and went to pull up the files Luke had emailed him. Address, basic personal details, floor plan, photos. An older woman with deep red hair he assumed was Jocelyn and a beautiful young woman with lighter red hair and eyes that sparkled even on his computer screen named Clarissa. Clarissa, Clary for short, had a bright, full smile of innocence that made him want to head right over, knock on her door, and keep her safe from whatever threatened her.

The thought made him shake his head. No, he couldn't let himself get distracted. Luckily he would be asking his very gay brother for help here so, fate willing, he wouldn't even get close enough to see if her eyes really did shine or not. He opened up the secure app on his phone that Izzy had installed and contacted Alec.

It connected immediately.

"Hey, I need a favor."

"What's up? Is something the matter?"

Just like Alec. Pick up on the first ring for family and immediately expect the worst.

"Nothing yet but I've been asked to organize an off the books watch on a family. Maybe ties to our big problem and the boss is wanting eyes on them. A precaution to make sure if someone bothers them they have the best protection on hand."

"What's your gut say?"

"Honestly? I don't have much information but I think it can't hurt. I don't see the downside."

"You mean besides me being bored out of my mind on a rooftop all night."

"Bring Warlock. Call it a stargazing date."

"Oh yeah, sure. Easy to see all those stars in the middle of the city. Naw, I'll leave him here with Eye. She's in the middle of tests and with his portals it's not like he can't just pop over if anything happens. Are we talking about more than one night?"

"Probably. We can talk rotation tomorrow? Having new friends is going to come in handy."

"Yeah, I have a meeting all morning tomorrow but we can meet up for lunch?"

"Sounds good. Let me know once you're in position and then just if anything happens, okay?"

"Of course. I'll give Warlock and Eye the cliff notes and let them know about lunch."

"Thanks. Be safe."

"Come home and get some sleep. I'm not taking two full nights back to back just because you're a workaholic."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Alec disconnected the call. He was right about the sleep. With a new vigilante making public moves and the formalization of the task force underway he had been working longer than normal. But he really wanted to live up to the responsibility. It was one thing to get the credit for the work with Shadowhunter. It was another knowing that he needed everything to be airtight, all bases covered and legal gray areas accounted for. Because if he didn't do his job then it exposed his brother, his family, and now three new people. He had looked into London and that absolutely couldn't happen here. So outside of just protecting his siblings he now felt fully responsible for the city. He wouldn't fail them.


	12. Episode 12

*******Alec - Flipping into Shadowhunter mode*******

"I'm heading out, Jace needs me for something," he said heading across the lair to the other hallway where his basic clothing was stored in the room they kept for snagging naps and changing.

"Anything I can help with?" Warlock called after him.

"Not right now. It's just keeping watch tonight. A gut feel we're keeping tabs on. But if something happens can I call you out?"

"Yeah, of course, darling."

"Do you need surveillance?" Izzy asked.

"Just light monitoring, put the bot on my numbers and see what cameras there are in the area that can be monitored. No real work needed. He's sending over the info he has already so if you want to play around with it I won't complain though. But I know you want to wrap up here and you have work tomorrow so don't push it."

"You have work too, right? Are you sure you don't want to take shifts?" Warlock asked worriedly as he walked back out into the main room, pulling on a shirt, jacket in hand, already changed into pants from the sweats he had had on previously.

"I'll manage."

"What's the point of teaming up then if I can't help lighten the load?" the man answered with frustration.

Alec paused and sighed internally. It really would take some getting used to, having to be patient with yet another new person learning how he tended to operate and probably adjusting some for how Warlock needed to operate. The downside to help was figuring out how to use it. He had to remember to explain things that went unsaid with his siblings anymore.

"I'm not saying no, I'm just saying not tonight. We'll gather more info and game plan tomorrow. Jace wants to do lunch with us and anyone on your side that wants to join to come up with a more formal rotation. I'm just the easy last minute solution for tonight."

"Oh, okay then. I'll make lunch. Just let me know when and where."

"Thank you, Warlock. Sorry, I should have explained at the beginning. I'm still used to them just knowing I can handle pulling an all-nighter with no preparation."

"Not even coffee?"

He exposed his marks in the process of getting ready and pointed to one. And if he felt a little twinge of pride at showing off his abilities in front of the powerful man who would blame him.

"Stamina. Supernatural coffee."

"How handy."

"Don't overuse that," Izzy chided him. "Can't have you getting exhausted again just because you don't want to sleep."

"It's just one night. Don't worry."

He finished up with his clothing and slid on the elastic strap that functioned as a headband to keep his hair from flopping into his goggles. He then topped off the look with his goggles, mask, and weapons and did a final mental check that he had everything.

"And if you do need me, I'm just a portal away."

"Take about handy. Now if you both would stop worrying I'm going to finish prepping and you two can finish your playdate and get sleep because I absolutely refuse to do two full nights in a row."

Izzy was already turned away again, looking at something on her tablet. Warlock was smiling at him. He felt an answering smile spread across his face, not that it was visible under the mask, and the tension he normally carried in his shoulders and neck softened as he moved to grab his gear from the wall.

"Bot's live," Izzy confirmed. "What Jace sent over looks easy enough. They tied to Luke?"

"I'm guessing as much. Luke Garroway, the Commissioner," he clarified for Warlock who nodded his understanding.

"Com check captured. Checking vitals and goggles now. Everything looks good. Be safe, big brother."

"Always. I'm off then. Let me know if anything comes up."

"Wait," Warlock called out. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He looked at the man, confused. No, he was pretty sure he had everything. Daggers, sword, quiver filled, bow, marks out, goggles, hair back out of his eyes so Eye wouldn't yell at him for the obstruction, mask.

"You were planning to walk there?"

"Not exactly. Normally I hop on top of a truck or the subway or something. Worst case I just engage speed and take a nice jog."

Warlock pinched the bridge of his nose, causing Alec to wonder what he was missing, and shook his head before saying, "Portals. I. Make. Portals."

"Oh." Wow, he felt stupid. Really stupid. "Right."

"Can I see a picture of where he needs to go, please?"

Izzy, who was laughing at him already had one pulled up and it only took a moment for a portal to open right in front of him to the roof he knew was across from the place he was watching.

"It's a really good thing you're so pretty."

"Thanks," he said rubbing at his neck knowing he was blushing and thanking the mask for hiding it at least somewhat, maybe he'd never take it off. "For the portal," he quickly added. "Thanks for the portal. Bye."

*******Alec - Bored*******

The only entertaining thing that had happened so far was when the girl's friend tripped on the stairs when leaving after having come over for dinner. That was two hours ago. Izzy wasn't chattering in his ear like she normally would be when the bot couldn't handle it.

And it's not like he could be on his phone. One, he had to actually watch for it to be considered surveillance. Two, phones screens lit up which made the whole hiding thing difficult. Three, if he used the communication tech his sister made someone may overhear him muttering under his breath if there is someone coming for the family and if that someone had super hearing or something because he couldn't be the only person with super hearing. Four, there was a zero percent chance Izzy didn't have access to all of his texts and mission recordings and with how she was acting recently he didn't trust her one bit with any sort of communication.

Not that he'd normally have an issue with that but right now the only person he'd want to be talking to is Magnus and he wouldn't put it past her to have alerts set up specifically for him talking to the man. She had been pushy from day one and now they were working together she'd see this as the answer to her two biggest concerns for him, that he'd die alone and that he'd die soon.

Wow, camping out on a rooftop at night really was the ideal aesthetic for depressing brooding. He felt like a cliche. A cliche that was causing his amazing siblings constant concern. Dying alone was, you know, whatever. He had three amazing siblings and at least one of them would have kids and he wasn't one to brag but he would make a solid uncle.

The dying part was a bigger concern all round. He didn't want to die because of this whole vigilante thing but if he needed to he could make that choice. He was a bit worried that Jace would either try to make it himself instead or that he'd spend the rest of his life thinking that he should have. And Izzy, well, she'd see it as her failure because she didn't design something to make him indestructible. Max would never have the full story. Plus everyone else would have to pretend that they don't know the pieces they knew so hopefully the death wouldn't require some deep investigation and really he should just make sure he didn't die because it would be very inconvenient for everyone in his life.

*******Izzy - Quietly watching because she promised she would rest*******

"Alright," she said looking at the charred segment of wall that used to be her brother's target for archery practice. "I think we're good for the night."

"You have all you need from me?"

"Oh goodness no. But I have what I need to start. I'll need to look at all of this to figure out what I'm missing and what else I'll need. The good news is that I think I know how to fix the few things you broke so you and Shadowhunter can portal about to your hearts' content and you won't fry anything the next time you hit him with one of your orbs."

"Sorry again to have complicated things."

"Don't worry about it. I enjoy the challenge. Now go get some sleep. You'll probably be busy the next few nights."

"You as well, young lady."

She looked at the screens monitoring her brother and sighed. She probably really did need to sleep. A foggy head wouldn't be good at work tomorrow. So even if her fingers itched to dig into the samples she had, who could blame her when this was the first big mystery she'd come across since finding out her brother had drunk some mysterious substance that was once his blood, she would go to sleep.

"Yeah, yeah. I just have to set up the portable version of all that," she said, gesturing to the monitors, "so that I can jump to action if something does come up."

"Good, I'll leave first then," he had obviously been paying attention because he easily engaged the mic to Shadowhunter from her setup. "Goodnight, Alexander. Don't get too lonely without me there to keep you company."

"Goodnight, Warlock. Talk to you tomorrow," her brother murmured back, softly enough that she knew he was trying to keep his voice from carrying past the mic.

Magnus gave her a quick hug that she returned before hopping through a portal.

Alone, she started to pack up all the still working equipment she had pulled out. Unable to help herself, Izzy did get some things going so that when she got in tomorrow she'd have something to work with. It only took an hour but doing analysis on blood and DNA took time and preparation. She also went ahead and placed the orders needed to replace the broken tech.

"Eye, go to bed."

She didn't respond. The cameras in his goggles didn't go both ways.

"I know you're still there. Stop being irresponsible and get some rest. Whatever you're doing will be there tomorrow."

She ignored him and finished cleaning up and transferring what she needed to her remote setup that she would lug with her back to the house.

"Fine, ignore me but if mom yells at you for falling asleep and blowing up your lab don't blame me. You know I'm good for now. I don't need you watching all the time."

That made her smile. Of course he'd worry and not expect her to worry back.

_Idiot._

"Goodnight, hermano."

"Goodnight, Eye. Sleep well."

*******Alec - Still Bored*******

The downside to the stamina mark was that, when he wasn't actively doing something, his mind would get tired but his brain wouldn't settle. That's what he was dealing with at the moment, his body and brain buzzing with energy, looking for an outlet, but he couldn't really **do** anything at the moment. It felt very much like when he used to drink twice the amount of coffee he should healthily consume to keep up with his work.

It didn't make him jumpy, not anymore. In the past it had been an issue but he'd gotten used to it through practice. Being used to it didn't mean he could control his mind jumping to what it wanted to when he let it wander.

_Warlock. Magnus._

Well, at least he had a nice long stretch of time to think things through. And the sooner he did the sooner he could feel calm and settled again, the sooner his stomach would stop clenching with the desire to avoid the discomfort.

Did he want to pursue the thing with Magnus?

Yes, yes he really did.

Did it need to be now?

It would really be better to put it off until things were easier. But, honestly, as the de facto Lightwood heir, it's not like his life would ever be easy, just less deadly.

He didn't need the distraction in the field, sure.

But his body was already moving on its own. So if he was going to naturally throw himself into danger for the man he may as well get the benefits of it and work on prevention to minimize the need for him to literally throw his body into the line of fire, or fire orbs.

Okay. So. That decision was made. Not that he really had a choice. He could do what was probably smart and then he'd be at a disadvantage because logic and instinct didn't always play nice together. Which just let him with the how.

Sure, the how of how they should work together and explaining things like, that it would be stupid for them both to die if he instinctively acted and something happened, or, that if he ever had to choose between his family and Magnus he would choose his family so if they ever had a difference of views they needed to talk about it, would be easy enough. He'd had those arguments twice already and won. Maybe it would be harder with another vigilante but they'd have that discussion and then that would be good.

The real how was, well, how does one date a fashion designer slash vigilante, at all? Was dating even the right word? He wasn't entirely misreading that was he? Izzy had a physical relationship with that Meliorn guy but never referred to it as dating, come to think of it. Which was probably for the best because he didn't particularly think they were a good long term match.

Actually, Magnus had only shown an interest in him physically besides asking about his job but that had been spurred by his sister's comments so maybe Magnus was just making polite small talk. Could Alec do casual? Izzy didn't really date, period. And she was fashionable and went to clubs and used makeup and Magnus was literally fashion and seemed comfortable at his sister's party and he used makeup and…

*******Magnus - Group texting with no regard for how late it is*******

**Magnus (11:24 PM):** Guys, what should I do about Alec?

**Cat (11:26 PM):** Is working with him not working out already?

**Magnus (11:27 PM): **What? No, not that. About him and me, you know, as people.

**Cat (11:30 PM): **Magnus, I want to help with whatever but I have to pull a double tomorrow, can you be a little less vague?

**Magnus (11:30 PM): **About how I want him.

**Cat (11:31 PM): **He seems to want you back, right? Based on what you've told us.

**Magnus (11:33 PM):** Oh, yes. I'm pretty sure he's interested. ;)

**Cat (11:35 PM):** Then, forgive me, Magnus. But what's the issue you need help with?

**Magnus (11:35 PM): **SHOULD I PURSUE HIM?!

**Magnus (11:38 PM): **What if it becomes a problem mixing personal with...other personal? His brother's a cop and even though this isn't like London it COULD BE and man is his life a bit COMPLICATED because I know how I got MY powers but how he got HIS is eeeesh and he's so far out of my league I mean have you SEEN him shirtless? Well, besides being bloody and almost dead because he's impeccable AND rich AND just the nicest, most sincere good person. Is he only single because of the personal stuff? Because, like, how does he not have the pick of literally any man even slightly questioning if they are straight or not?

**Magnus (11:40 PM): **If we fix his problem do we suddenly have nothing in common and then what if my heart is involved because I DID NOT handle my past few breakups well and those were with people who only knew some of me as a person besides Camille but she's, you know, so she doesn't count. So what happens if I am all in to try to figure things out and then we lose our current tie to each other and then he realizes that I am in no way worth actually being in a relationship with and all along he was just into me physically and I was convenient?

**Cat (11:41 PM):** Magnus, I'm sure that won't be the case but even if it is you'll only figure it out if you talk with him, right? Not us?

**Magnus (11:42 PM):** That's fair. Also, before I forget, if either of you is free for lunch tomorrow at noon we're having a little planning meeting. I'll pass on location when I know it.

**Cat (11:44 PM):** I'll be working but call me if you need me for input or anything.

**Magnus (11:45 PM):** Sounds good. Goodnight, Cat! Thanks for being the best! 3

**Raphael (12:18 AM): **You're an idiot.

**Raphael (12:19 AM):** So, stop being that.

**Raphael (12:19 AM):** Just, be yourself.

**Raphael (12:20 AM): **And since yourself is being an over the top person with no impulse control I'm saying...do you really think you're going to not do this?

**Raphael (12:22 AM): **Don't waste our time with lying to yourself and just do whatever it is with the man.

**Magnus (12:23 AM):** Awwwww, that sounds like a compliment 3 Thanks for your support! I'll keep you posted.

**Raphael (12:30 AM):** Absolutely do not do that.

*******Alec - No longer bored and missing the feeling as he spirals*******

Oh my goodness, had Alec been sending mixed messages because he did kiss Magnus first, heavily and deeply, without any discussion. Was Magnus avoiding the conversation because he thought they were on the same page and didn't think it needed more conversation? Or did he avoid it because he thought they weren't on the same page because Alec had been wildly out of character so far?

No way he could do casual because he was already thinking about this way too much and he was pretty sure that was the opposite of casual and if he was being honest with himself, now that he had kissed Magnus a few times and started getting comfortable around him he really didn't want to just settle for anything less than the most he could possibly get. His exactly no previous experience led him to be pretty sure that, with that track record, he should take this seriously.

It's not that he hadn't been interested in guys before. There was even a short period before he had come out to his family that he had thought he liked Jace. He had been drunk around attractive men before, some had even tried making moves and there were plenty of people who wanted to cozy up to a Lightwood for the benefits they had and even Alec wasn't safe from receiving those advances even if they did make his skin crawl and, thankfully, happened far less frequently than they did for Jace and Izzy. But he had never wanted to push anything forward and he had definitely never needed to have a conversation with another guy to define and plan out things between them. Magnus was unique not because he was the first but because Alec's mind so easily accepted him, wanted him.

So if he was going to do this he would do it seriously and be open to as much as the other man would allow. That was, easy enough to convey, probably.

Except, what if what Magnus would allow was not enough? Sure, Alec had money and connections but without what he had just because he was a Lightwood what was he really? A pseudo-criminal vigilante who was only legally allowed to operate because of his brother and only able to successfully operate because of his sister? A very awkward virgin who couldn't even pretend to have any chill about things like his siblings seemed able to?

Compared to Magnus who was beautiful and talented and had built his dream up with honed skills and hard work, not that he had been told that but he could tell just from knowing the man a little and also there was Google. Magnus lived his life in color, even when he was hiding behind a vigilante facade. He burned brighter than his fire, with more strength than the strongest of his wind, with…wow, Alec guess he was starting to understand bad poetry.

But Alec? Alec was a literal gray scale.

So maybe there was a physical connection but maybe that's all Magnus would want. While Alec said he wanted to explore their connection as far as Magnus would allow he wasn't quite able to convince himself that he wouldn't get greedy. That, that was the hard part of the conversation.


	13. Episode 13

*******Magnus - A bit, well really a lot, nervous for the evening*******

The lunch meeting had been far more boring than it should have been between the stunning Lightwood children, a rising star in the fashion world, and Raphael. Jace had coordinated coverage on the family with Luke to make the meeting time work, coverage really meant Luke took the duo out to lunch nearby so they could rush to their aid if need be, so they needed to make good use of the hour. But still. Five very different but interesting people having a meal together and all they really did was discuss schedules for further tests, training, and keeping an eye on things at the Fray household. Which to an outsider may sound like an amazing hour of intrigue but really felt like another day of work.

Raphael and Alec would leave from lunch to do some initial training exploration so Alec could best plan what to teach. Isabelle would join them after she was done with work. Magnus would take over for Jace and would be spelled partway through the night by Alexander who had insisted that since he didn't have to work the next day he could manage another partial night.

Magnus wanted to argue that more but since Isabelle had only sighed and rolled her eyes he let it go. The small, understanding smile Alec gifted him with was worth it, probably. When that man looked at him he felt seen in a way that made a longing travel from his heart down to settle in his stomach. If just a smile had him feeling that way what would happen if the other man ever figured out how to intentionally manipulate him?

Not that he would, of course. He just couldn't picture Alexander doing anything so evil as to manipulate him unless it was with the most pure intent. Well, technically he could but that was way far away after plenty of much less adventurous moments had been had in the dim lights of his bedroom.

When he had first arrived it had just been Isabelle and himself. It had been ridiculously easy to make small talk with her and while they didn't really stray from fashion it felt more like friends enjoying a shared interest than a business meeting which was what talking about his career normally felt like. He even gave her a sneak peak at some of his new design sketches that he had on his phone, moving to the seat next to her at the small table towards the back of the room.

"That last one wouldn't be inspired by anyone, would it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, smirking into his drink. He knew well and good it would be obvious that that was one of his Shadowhunter inspired designs.

"Uhuh, sure. Look, Magnus, I'm thrilled about him inspiring your artistic soul or whatever but…"

"I know, I know. Probably too big of a risk. Don't worry, I'll keep those ones for just myself."

"Oh, no, not that. I was just going to ask when you plan to actually put my brother **in **your clothing because he can't just keep wearing the same three t-shirts even if they are designer. What's the point of owning designer if you wear it until it's shapeless and has **not at all well hidden holes**? Not to mention he buys a size too large so all that physical work he does gets hidden under a tent of a sweater. Seriously, if you just send over everything for him I'll pay. You have my card on file. Ooooo! And then you can pop by and we can make a little pile of his current wardrobe and incinerate it with your hands."

"Well, probably portal any usable pieces to a donation center."

"Good call, he can't get mad at us if we turn it into a good deed."

"Is my wardrobe really that bad?" asked the brother who had managed to approach while they were engrossed in Magnus' phone.

_Ah, yes, good call. Disparage the man you want's fashion choice where he can hear. That's how you win him over._

"Well, darling, it's not so much bad as it's...that...well...I'm a **fashion designer**. I'm always looking for ways my clothing could improve someone's outfit. I do it with everyone."

The other man looked pointedly between the two of them as he took a seat on the other side of Magnus.

"Ah, I must have missed the earlier part of the conversation where you critiqued Izzy's outfit."

"She normally looks fine."

"Just fine?"

"Shh, dear. You've become one of my best customers this season but that doesn't mean you're immune. Sometimes you try to dress up athleisure for clubbing and I've never been particularly fond of that trend but really, normally you're on point. See, Alexander, nobody is immune."

"Fine, fine. Maybe I'll have to drop by sometime. If only to make it impossible for you two to complain for a few months."

"Anytime! I'll do a personal consult and fitting if you want."

"Oh, no. I wouldn't want to trouble you that much. I'll just ask the salesperson to pick some stuff and then maybe my sister will have to get me something besides clothes for Christmas this year."

"You love when I get you clothing," his sister smirked back.

"Useful clothing, yes. Sometimes you go too extreme and I end up with a onesie."

"Romphims were totally in style then!"

"I hope there are pictures," Magnus teased, joining in again. "And it's no trouble at all. I'd love to get my hands on you." He winked and enjoyed the blush that appeared on the man's face even though he didn't look away. Overall, Alexander seemed much more relaxed today, maybe he was getting used to being non-vigilante himself around Magnus.

"I'm surprised you're so open to this, hermano. You fought me so much on a single outfit not too long ago."

"Well, I can't really complain where that outfit got me," he muttered blushing even more deeply.

He was really too adorable. Magnus couldn't help but remember what happened the last time Alexander wore his clothing and he couldn't complain at all either.

"Alexander, if you're going to jump me every time you wear my clothing I'm afraid I'm going to have to replace every stitch you own. Who knows, maybe I'll get into the home design game. Carpets, sheets, towels, just cover all the bases."

"Disgusting. You two, stop it now," came an apathetic voice approaching the table, Raphael with Jace a few feet behind.

"You don't have super hearing, you have no idea what we were discussing so far away," Magnus replied as the remainder of their lunch group joined the table.

"The way you two were leaning in and my brother was smiling despite being a shade of red not seen since we were kids and he got sunburned at the beach we can make a good guess that you weren't talking about the stock market."

"Jace, nice of you to join us at the meeting you called," Alec said, tensing a bit next to him. "We were merely making small talk until you choose to show up."

"Well, now we can get to shop talk. But first, let's order if you haven't already. I'm starving."

It really had been a short thing to discuss what was to be a fairly straightforward rotation. Barring Alec having any work meetings pop up last minute they wouldn't really need to deviate. It would, unfortunately, mean he and Alec would not have a reasonable window to chat unless he did actually come into the store for clothes and that was only if he wasn't exhausted and Magnus wasn't exhausted and also was available to take a break.

But Alexander was acting more comfortable, he didn't look away when Magnus made blatant innuendos, he even reciprocated in his own way. At least he thought he did, his hazel eyes danced even when his mouth remained on business.

*******Alec - Very appreciative that his current companion thrived in silence*******

"So. There's really no purpose to having you do cardio. Is there."

"No, not really."

Raphael's silence as they traveled to the lair was nice. Once they started training it was less so. He appreciated someone who didn't need to talk all the time but volunteering useful information like 'I don't need to do cardio I'm just naturally good there and we can just permanently check that box' would be nice.

"I was wondering if you had like, a normal running pace and then your super speed and maybe your normal running didn't pull on your super cardio but obviously that's not the case."

"It is not."

"You could have just told me that. I'd have believed you."

"You didn't ask."

"And now we've wasted half an hour and the treadmill needs a new motor. You do realize that I'm here to help you, right? Because if you don't actually want to work with me I won't make you but I also won't stand up for you the next time Warlock tries to keep you home."

"Fine. Okay, fine."

"Pick these up," Alec said, pointing at weights that, assuming the man's abilities didn't also make weightlifting useless, should be a bit heavy. "And put two on each side of the bar. I'll show you how to do some basic lifts correctly so you don't get injured. Unless you're already trained in free weights?"

The other man rolled his eyes and went to follow his instructions. At least he was taking direction. Alec was partly expecting a battle of wills to rival his with Jace. Instead, he just got to deal with some passive aggressive smirking.

"Holy! Seriously? You plan to use four of these as a **demonstration**?!"

Now it was Alec's turn to smirk as he went over to grab two of the weights to help with the task.

"Field combat lesson number one: When dealing with superpowers don't ever make assumptions about someone's physical limitations."

"You just wanted to show off."

"You broke my treadmill and you're accusing me of showing off?"

"Fair enough," Raphael conceded, eyes, no longer radiating that he was humoring Alec, now turned assessing and maybe a bit curious.

They took a much needed break two hours later. Really, he was shocked Raphael hadn't tried killing him yet. Or maybe he had and he has just done so so inefficiently Alec hadn't noticed. Either way, it was clear why Magnus was worried about his friend going into the field.

Raphael had obviously never frequented the gym, possibly because he hadn't needed to as his metabolism seemed slightly better than most, so he would need to build up some muscle. Thankfully, Alec had no plans to pile the weight on as bulk would only get in the way for the speedster so it had been easy enough to set up a routine to be followed.

The issues had really come when Alec had tried starting them on some basic self defense techniques.

"You can't just go faster and assume that'll work. What if someone gets hold of you? What's your move then?"

"I'll just move my other hand really fast and break their hold."

"And if they get both of your hands?"

"Unlikely."

Alec found himself losing his patience, activating his speed rune, and had the man's hands zip tied behind his back in a smooth move.

"That doesn't count!"

"Oh, sure. Because people give you warning when you're fighting them."

"They probably won't be as fast as you."

"Camille didn't seem to find that a hindrance. If I recall, she had you pretty well tied up when we first met and I didn't see your speed doing anything to help."

"She had a tripwire! Show me how to fight tripwires."

"I can't cover ever potential trap you can fall into, that's just unreasonable."

"Then why are we even doing this?!"

He needed to take a step back, needed to rein in his temper. He could understand the frustration felt by the younger man. To have abilities but still feel like you're struggling to contribute when you're friends were in trouble and to be told you had to learn how to break a simple arm grab without using any of those abilities and to not be able to do that, he got the frustration.

He also got **his** frustration because how hard was it to understand that you needed to learn something at regular speed first to build the muscle memory and proper form? Hell, Alec wasn't anywhere near as fast with his speed mark engaged but he hadn't had any issue guessing the speedster's next move and countering. What if he came up against another speedster? What if his powers were nullified somehow? Alec could come up with countless other scenarios, he was very good at worst case scenario generating.

Plus, Raphael had **agreed** to this training. He had **agreed** to let Alec train him. So why was he fighting him on every little thing now?

"Let's take a break, okay? I can show you some of Eye's surveillance stuff or we can meditate or something different."

"Already giving up," he heard the other man mutter under his breath.

Shrugging with annoyance, Alec grabbed his bow and arrow and went to focus on something else before he said something incendiary.

*******Magnus - Not terribly surprised but still exasperated*******

"Your stupid boyfriend isn't a good teacher."

"Yeah, sure, of course," he replied to Raphael who had plopped down in one of the chairs he kept in his workshop for consultations, or as close to plopping as Raphael could move. "He isn't my boyfriend, and I highly doubt it's that simple."

"I should have known you'd take his side."

"And clearly I'm doing that because my baser instincts are overruling logic and not at all because you're being dramatic and moody."

"I came here for support not to be lectured again."

"No, you came here because you don't necessarily feel in the right in the situation but you need your wise, older friend to help get you there. Now tell me what happened."

"He wouldn't let me use my speed in training."

"How dare he. Did you ask him why?" When the other man just humphed he continued. "I'm sure he explained. Alexander doesn't seem to make decisions without a reason. And I'm sure you responded to him with decorum and civility when you disagreed."

"He gave up on me already!"

"Oh my, told you you were a lost cause, did he?"

"Well…"

"What did he really say?"

"That we should take a break."

Magnus couldn't even manage a response to that so he just leveled a look at Raphael and waited for him to tell him what was really going on.

"Fine, okay? I got annoyed and left. But he was annoyed as well."

"And he ran away?"

"...no."

Magnus went back to his work, letting the silence stretch between them. He knew by now how to draw things out of the younger man.

"I am so far away from being useful."

Silence.

"I couldn't even do the basic thing he was showing me without my speed."

More silence.

"Or with my speed although he has a sort of speed thing too so it wasn't really fair."

And still more silence.

Then slowly, and much more quietly, "And if I'm so far behind and you're in the field tonight then how many chances are there going to be where I could have been useful to you but can't be until I get competent? I know why I can't come out with you but sitting at lunch hearing you so excited to expose yourself to risk all I could think about was Ragnor and how I wasn't useful to him and if I had been then maybe he'd still be around."

Of course it was that. Raphael had been decades younger than Ragnor but they had managed a strong friendship based on common temperaments and a mutual concern for their much more troublesome friend. He had stressed Raphael more than he had known because Ragnor had been risk averse and cautious and had died and here he was actively courting trouble.

"Raphael," he started slowly, "Ragnor's death wasn't on you." He held up his hand to silence the argument that was about to come out of the younger man's mouth. "If it was on you then it was more on me for dragging him, and you, into it. Regardless of whether you volunteered to or not, the choice was only there because of my actions. If I'm not allowed to blame myself then you aren't either. What you are to blame for is running away."

With a deep sigh, Raphael stood and made his way to the door. "Thanks."

"Always."

*******Raphael - Always willing to take responsibility, even if it is with a large dose of salt*******

"Good break?"

"Shut up," he quipped back at the tall man without any heat in the delivery. "Show me that move again."

"Do we need to talk about anything?"

"No."

"No speed."

"I'll try my best but it's kinda a fight or flight thing sometimes."

"Fair enough. First, we need to get these to be muscle memory so you have more control over when that's triggered. So you only need your speed when you want to use it."

All in all, it was still very frustrating. But at least they had made progress. And if he had been itching to use his speed he soon got very tired of doing so on command as the sister arrived, bursting with eager energy to throw sensors on him and order him around while making him wear the stupid suit Magnus had made from speed safe material. It almost made him miss being thrown down on a mat repeatedly.

"Okay, good. Now the next point," her voice ordered into his ear from an earpiece she had fitted him with.

He had been running towards a point and stopping only to run towards another point for close to an hour now. She had also stuck a pair of goggles on him and he was still getting used to the navigation feature. All he saw was a little dot on the compass rose which sent him in the right direction and did a pretty decent job telling him when he was getting close or needed to stop but did absolutely nothing telling him there was a tree or a pond or a road with traffic.

"How far away is it?"

"I'm not telling you that. This needs to be as pure of an experiment as possible so we can find your range."

"Can you at least tell me if I'll be running into water?"

"There is one stream but it should be fine because it doesn't look too deep."

"At least the leotard is waterproof."

"I still think you could have made it across that pond if you hadn't let yourself psych yourself out. You run fast enough so it has to be mental."

"Sure, makes sense. Now all I have to do is **believe** I can run across the water. Easy. Definitely not something my human brain will rebel at constantly."

"That's the spirit," the woman chirped back at him.

"I think I prefer your brother's idea of reasonable training to your mad scientist level testing."

"The faster you run, the sooner you're done. Now get moving."

And so he did. Running was at least easy. Except when the stupid direction dot **started bouncing around! What the hell?!** He changed direction to follow the new location and then it bounced again and again until it was ten minutes later and he hadn't slowed yet and he was getting a bit tired. Normally he could go longer but normally he hadn't been doing sprints for an hour before. Plus, changing direction was hard at speed.

"Good. Good job. You can come back now."

"He zipped back to the lair at just above half speed as a pseudo cool down but still fast enough for safety.

"What do you think you're doing?" He found himself angry at another Lightwood sibling for the second time today. It must just be a family thing.

"Testing your turning. Obviously, we'll need to do it again when you're fresh. You lost a good ten miles per hour on the straights. I guess I ran you a bit too much."

"You think?! What can you even get out of that torture?"

"Well, for starters, besides your limits, the turning tests will let me better plot paths for you. As expected, curves are easier for you to make than sharp angles and if we need you to make a tight turn then I have to give you a decent advance notice so you don't overshoot or run into something."

Dammit. He hated that she was right. Just because today was Unintentionally Make Raphael Feel Incompetent Day didn't mean her methods weren't reasonable. He hadn't run that much since he first got his powers and it felt odd to be tired and a tiny bit winded.

"Here," Eye walked over to him with a bottle filled with water. "It's spiked with electrolytes and sugar. I'll need to evaluate your tests some more but I assume both of those are depleted in your body at the moment so we'll start with that."

"Stretch out and then you can shower and change down the hall if you want," Shadowhunter said as he came out of the training room to join the conversation he had probably heard. Because, super hearing. Because, some people had more than one power.

"Fine, but I'm stretching down there as well. I need to get out of this outfit immediately."

"It is a bit, yeah," the other man helpfully offered.

It was silver. He could lie all he wanted and say it was gray but it was silver because at one point Magnus had favored dressing in overly gold outfits and when Raphael had accidentally, just once, used the term sidekick, Magnus had made him a silver bodysuit.

"Yep," he made his way out of the room but paused before completely disappearing. "And thank you, both."


	14. Episode 14

*******Magnus - Not remember a less exciting late night in his life*******

The previous night had been less than eventful. He had taken over for Jace and portled then man home home so he didn't have to deal with traffic after a long day. And then he had sat, silent and still on the roof across from the family's house, for hours.

For the first bit he had been able to play with some of the tech Isabelle had fitted him with. But there was only so much you could do with a handheld version of what was in Shadowhunter's goggles and a communication system, both of which were developed for action, when you were supposed to be as inactive as possible.

He had been torn on what to wear. Just because he had a perception filter over himself didn't mean people couldn't still see him if he dressed to stand out. So he had dressed in dark clothing with no unnecessary shine or shimmer and no jewelry even except for some leather and wooden pieces. That didn't mean he didn't look good. He wasn't going to let Alec show up in his leather and tight clothing and sexy tattoos only to find him looking like a common vagabond.

It obviously was good enough because when a dark shadow slid across the roof to meet him at the edge it was a full half a minute before the man acknowledged him. Even through the goggles and mask he could see the slight movement of the man's head as he took Magnus in. He wished he could ask what exactly was catching the other man's eyes. Was it the openness of his shirt? His dark makeup matching the drama and secrecy of the mission?

"Sorry, it took me a second. I'm not used to the only shiny thing about you being your eyes. They were like two little beacons calling me across the roof," the man whispered.

"The Daisy to my Gatsby?"

"I'm pretty sure that was a green light. And also it was Daisy's dock."

"True but I'm absolutely Gatsby."

"Well, hopefully I'm less terrible than Daisy."

It had been a while since he had read the book but he was pretty sure that was a good thing. And also flirting. It had to be flirting.

"It depends. Are you leading me on only to have our story end in my dramatic and symbolic death?"

He was met with silence. Shit. Too much.

"I'm not," Alec finally replied. "You should go home and get some sleep. You are working tomorrow at your store, right?"

"Yeah, okay. I still don't think it's fair to you that you're doing another shift but I get that I'm overruled so I'll let you have the rooftop. Call me if something comes up."

"Sure thing."

It had gotten awkward. Fantastic.

He dropped down into an alley and portaled away, kicking himself for ruining the moment.

*******Magnus - At least not hungover after a late night so that's something*******

**Isabelle (9:47 AM):** Good morning, boyfriend. Hope you're awake and having a great day after last night.

Either he had missed something or Isabelle was delirious with lack of sleep.

**Magnus (9:48 AM):** Good morning, dear Isabelle. I'm sorry if I've given you the wrong impression but I really only think of you as a friend.

**Isabelle (9:51 AM):** Clearly we both know I'm not the Lightwood you're interested in. I was gagging on your cheesy book flirting. Nerds the both of you.

**Magnus (9:52 AM): **I'm sure I'm missing something but I did have a late night and am only on my second cup of coffee so maybe help me out?

**Isabelle (9:52 AM):**_ Attachment: Lightwood's Latest Lover? Socialite seen about town with new beau!_

It was an article from some tabloid. He wasn't familiar with the particular publication but it wouldn't be the first time he was in one. Even without reading it he got the gist of the story, not that that kept him from reading it.

"_Socialite and fashion darling of the town, Isabelle Lightwood, was seen cosying up to a new man yesterday at a brunch in an exclusive hot spot for the rich and famous. Pictures have emerged of the lovers with heads together in comfortable conversation, body language hinting at their familiarity with each other in a more...intimate physical manner. After extensive research the new man in her life has been identified as none other than Magnus Bane of Bane Fashions._

_Bane recently relocated from London to the N.Y.C. where he has opened his second storefront for his up and coming fashion label. While no evidence has been found to support any rumor that Bane moved across the pond for love an inside source has confirmed that Miss Lightwood has become a frequent patron of his store that also is the location of his private workshop where he is known to hold 'personal' consultations. While known to associate with both men and women, nobody can fault Bane's taste in partners as Isabelle is one of the shining jewels of the city's nightlife. Not a stranger to the club scene himself, the pair is likely to be the golden couple and the top get for any party promoter for as long as they stay together._

_We'll have an update on the lovebirds as we watch their romance bloom and on previous Lightwood boy toy Meliorn as he is now a bachelor and back on the market. Is he heartbroken? Is Isabelle still keeping him in the wings? All we know for sure is that we're sure to get plenty more fashion magazine worthy shots of the couple as both have made their reputation on always looking on point."_

Attached to the story were three pictures. One from their lunch the day before of them hovering over his phone joking about her brother. The second was them talking over their meal. The third was a blurry image that was probably, more than likely, Isabelle leaving his store with multiple bags.

**Magnus (10:10 AM):** Has Alexander seen this?

**Isabelle (10:11 AM):** Yes, I'm fine. Meliorn understand and isn't worried. I don't need you to do anything to help but thanks for offering.

**Isabelle (10:11 AM):** And no, he's still asleep but I don't doubt Jace sent it to him so expect him to have seen it at some point today. Not that you need to worry, probably. He knows I'm not gunning for you.

**Magnus (10:13 AM):** You can literally see half his torso in the second picture. I'm obviously leaning towards him, not you. I should sue them.

**Isabelle (10:14 AM):** Alec probably wouldn't thank you for dragging him into a court case.

**Magnus (10:15 AM):** True. Speaking of you listening in last night. How badly did I stick my foot in my mouth?

**Isabelle (10:15 AM): **What?

**Isabelle (10:16 AM): **Oh, when you prodded him? Magnus, don't worry about that. Trust me.

**Magnus (10:18 AM):** Fine, but it's on your head. I'm leaning on you because he's your brother.

**Isabelle (10:22 AM):** Sorry, gotta deal with a fire. Talk to you later!

Knowing that woman it was probably a literal fire. Magnus shook his head and reread the article before getting back to work. He doubted their inside source was actually inside the store but…

**Magnus (10:40 AM): **Assuming you're not engulfed in flames, or if you are that it's intentional...any chance you can figure out if that inside source is actually inside? I've been banking on my workshop being a safe space so I need to know if that's not the case.

**Isabelle (12:03 PM): **You're good. Just a photographer who tends to hang out around the street trying to make a living figuring out who's shopping where.

**Magnus (12:07 PM):** Thanks!

*******Alec - Wishing he was in a trash rag magazine for the first time in his life*******

Alec woke to two annoying pieces of news.

First, his mother had emailed to tell him that he was required to attend the charity gala their company was sponsoring for a hospital and that she had already changed his RSVP for him. She added that, it was probably time he started bringing dates to these events to make the board comfortable that he was an adult who was stable. She didn't mention the gender of the date which almost sounded like a compromise on her part. She'd never publicly have an issue with him being gay but she had not been supportive when he had come out. Maybe enough time had passed that she was just worried he'd never pick any life partner.

The second piece of news was sent by his brother, a stupid news story linking Izzy with Magnus. His Magnus.

**Jace (9:50 AM): **Get your man, bro.

**Alec (2:24 PM):** wonderful

**Jace (2:26 PM): **Dude, you slept a long time, especially for you. Everything okay?

**Jace (2:26 PM):** Also, are you going to talk with Magnus anytime soon?

**Alec (2:27 PM):** I had a couple late nights, I'm fine. Promise. Getting rest where I can, just in case. And yeah, I think I'm going to head over to his store. Can't have my sister swoop in.

**Jace (2:30 PM):** She'd never do that.

**Alec (2:31 PM):** Obviously, but better get things clarified sooner rather than later or else they'll run some atrocious story about us fighting over him and mom will have a coronary. How's the watch going today?

**Jace (2:35 PM):** Dude, this family is so boring. They don't do anything interesting. The daughter doesn't even sneak guys in or sneak out to go party. I think her mother would actually support her if she rebelled.

**Alec (2:35 PM): **Wonder what that feels like.

**Jace (2:36 PM): **Maryse causing you issues again? She doesn't already know, right? Because if she hasn't found a way to be okay with who you are after all this time…

**Alec (2:41 PM): **No, nothing like that. Far more normal concerns. I think she's okay with me, now, as long as I start thinking about getting married and children. It's whatever.

**Jace (2:57 PM): **Sorry man, the family is going somewhere. Had to get down to my car quickly. Talk to you later!

He had an idea to help with both issues. A risky idea that was somewhat bold but he wasn't feeling like being passive right now. He asked Raj to drive him to Magnus' store instead of driving himself so he could get it organized.

**From: **Lightwood, Alexander

**To: **Branwell, Lydia

**Date: **May 29, 3:15 PM

**Subject:** Gala plus one

_Hey Lydia,_

_ Can you change my RSVP for the gala next week to have a +1?_

_Thanks,_

_Alec_

**From: **Branwell, Lydia

**To: **Lightwood, Alexander

**Date: **May 29, 3:18 PM

**Subject:** Re: Gala plus one

_Alec,_

_Done._

_\- Lydia_

He sent off a quick thanks and sighed in relief. Thank goodness Lydia was so entirely willing to never probe into his personal life.

*******Alec - Spending more time looking at clothing than previously in aggregate through his whole life*******

Alec needed clothes to make him look date-able, immediately. He didn't really care that Izzy had been the Lightwood sibling picked, he knew he put absolutely no effort in and she was on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. He knew Magnus was interested in him without him changing his style. He knew he didn't need to change for others.

But he wanted to do, something. He liked how Magnus looked at him in clothing that Izzy picked, the party outfit and his Shadowhunter gear. So he wouldn't dress for others but he definitely would dress to get him more of the feeling he felt when he managed to make Magnus feel what Alec felt all the time in the man's presence. All he had to do was figure out which of these things on racks in front of him could do that.

"Sir, can I help you with anything?" a salesperson asked after he spent a good five minutes staring at a small pile of pants with a furrowed brow.

"Umm, no. Well. Maybe. Do you have anything for men that don't have those holes in them? My sister says my clothing already has enough."

"Well, Mr. Bane was really inspired by body accentuating cutouts for any gender this last season but we do have some more basic pieces towards the back that may meet your needs?"

**Basic.** That didn't scream as likely to be dating Magnus as media darling and fashion plate Izzy. Maybe the cutouts weren't as noticeable once the garment was on?

"Thanks," he said, returning to his staring at the pants, talking himself into at least trying a pair on even if they did have holes. He didn't notice another person approach.

"Alexander! I wasn't expecting you in today. You should have let me know you were coming. It's alright, I've got him from here." Magnus approached across the shop and the salesperson quietly withdrew from the area.

He had seen him less than a day ago but he was likely never going to get used to seeing Magnus, especially when he was in his element.

"I thought I mentioned it last night." He thought back. He had, hadn't he? He had meant to, even before the stupid article. Maybe he had only thought it. Being in a dark, quiet place with those eyes staring at him had made him a bit muddled. "Ah, guess I only confirmed you'd be here. Not that I would be as well. Sorry about that but you really don't need to bother with me, I can find my way around regardless of what Izzy says."

Magnus grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the display he had been not quite glaring at. "If you think for one second I'm letting you wear that then I most certainly do need to bother."

"What's wrong with it? It's in the store window."

"Yes, but it's definitely not for you."

"Oh, okay. I was just looking to mix things up a bit maybe?"

"Alexander," Magnus sighed and stopped pulling him towards the back of the store to face him. "If you wear that every even remotely questioning man and any woman who has even once been attracted to a man with a pulse is going to be openly ogling you. Is that what you want?"

"No." He didn't. He didn't want to deal with that. He saw how annoying it could be for Izzy and he wasn't looking to collect attention from anyone. Well, at least not anyone who isn't Magnus.

"Good, because I'm a one soul at a time kind of man so I'd very much like to monopolize any bare skin you want to flash. That is...assuming you're also...well...on board with that."

"I am."

"Well, wonderful then. Now let's get you something you'd actually feel comfortable in, okay?"

*******Magnus - Had had the talk with Alexander, right? That counted, right?*******

Alexander was actually very easy to shop for. Isabelle had made it sound like a chore to get him into a new outfit. What Magnus had very quickly realized was that it was hard to get the other man to go outside his comfort zone on more than one level but that he'd readily try something that only broke one norm. Sure, maybe some of the ease was due to it being Magnus asking but Alec had a spine and didn't worry about saying no if he wasn't a fan. In less time than Alec had spent looking at a single pair of pants they had an armful of items for him to try on.

They had made small, surface conversation while shopping.

"What about this?"

"It's a bit, pink?"

"Dark magenta. Yes, but the cut is very relaxed and it looks good alone or dressing down a blazer."

"Okay, put it on the stack.'

"And this?"

"Isn't that material...really...clingy?"

"But we have it in black so it may cling but the black will obscure the tightness. It'll allow for confidence without having you be hyper aware of what others may see with the fit."

"Fair enough. Wooden buttons?"

"The green will bring out your eyes."

And it went on like that until Magnus was confident they'd find a few really good pieces that Alec would actually like and wear. Then he sent the man into a changing room to make sure the fit worked.

"I know my size, Magnus."

"Every brand is different and I have a professional reputation to uphold. If something doesn't fit right I'll need to make adjustments."

"Really, Magnus, you don't have to go through the trouble."

"I do if I am going to be photographed with you, in the future," he hesitantly said. Sure, they had kind of talked but not really.

"True," a snort came from inside the dressing room, "Our first picture was less than ideal. I think this fits?"

Alexander came out to show off the first set of clothing and Magnus temporarily suspended the conversation to look at the fit closely. Damn, it was like he had designed the lines and proportions with a man he hadn't even known at the time in mind. Maybe he could get him to model some items for the website in the future.

"It does. What do you think?"

"Hm, well. It looks mostly like what I already own, just, a bit more, something? And not as loose, of course. I'm comfortable though so that's good."

"It is something," Magnus murmured in agreement. "Okay, next!"

That earned him a laugh and a, dare he hope, fond smile before the other man went back into the dressing room.

"So," came a hesitant voice from the room. "I'm not sure if you've heard from Izzy about the charity gala our company is sponsoring next week? I was wondering if you wanted to go."

Wait, was this it? Was Alexander asking him on a date? In a very public setting? His family would be there, his **mother**. And his coworkers and employees and a whole slew of important people in the city. Plus the press would be covering the event. Had Alec ever taken a date to any event like this before? He'd never seen anything online when he was doing his research.

Maybe it wasn't a date invitation? Maybe he just wanted to invite him as a friend of the family? Because he was probably at friend status with Isabelle and he was making a very nice amount of money from his brand recently, for what he did at the scale he did it, so he could probably donate a useful amount. And maybe the man wanted a friendly face and someone to talk to? Magnus had been to these types of events many times so he knew they could be boring and awkward.

"Izzy will be there as well," Alec continued after the silence went for a little too long. Magnus kicked himself for getting to deep in his thoughts. "And maybe Jace but we never know for sure until he either shows up or the event ends."

"It sounds like fun. I'd love to go, always good to show up for a good cause and Cat actually works for that hospital."

"Oh, cool. So she's probably invited as well."

"Yep. I've actually been a bit jealous that she was going and I wasn't."

That was a fair middle ground to take, right? He was happy to go but gave an out in case it wasn't a date.

"Will Raphael feel left out then? Because I can get him added to the list as well."

One part of Magnus' brain said he should really clarify things just in case his responses were taken the wrong way. The other part thought it was just the sweetest that Alexander would think of his friend and want him to feel included, especially with how Raphael had been feeling left out regarding their clandestine activities.

"I'll get him added as well, just in case," the other man continued after Magnus once again didn't reply fast enough. "He can always say no but then at least it's up to him. He doesn't seem like the gala type but I wouldn't want to split up your trio. How's this look?"

_I'm not 100% on the dates from the past chapters so I'm just going to make it accurate from here forward based on the email dates. Also, I haven't done the math yet but I would say I'm keeping their cannon birthdays but not their cannon birth years._


End file.
